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SOME  EVIDENCES  OF  MYSTICISM 

IN  ENGLISH  POETRY  OF  THE 

NINETEENTH  CENTURY 


BY 

SISTER  MARY  Pius,  M.A. 

' .;. '  <*P  ' 

THE  STSTK:  .  JOSEPH  OF  CARONDELET 

SAINT  Lorrs,  Mis*ot  m 


A  DISSERTATION 

Submitted  to  the  CatJiolic  Sisters  College  of  the  Catholic  University 

of  America  in  Partial  Fulfillment  of  the  Requirements 

for  the  Degree  Doctor  of  Philosophy 


WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 
JUNE,  1910 


SOME  EVIDENCES  OF  MYSTICISM 

IN  ENGLISH  POETRY  OF  THE 

NINETEENTH  CENTURY 


BY 

SISTER  MARY  Pius,  M.A. 

OF 

THE  SISTERS  OF  ST.  JOSEPH  OF  CARONDELET 
SAINT  Louis,  MISSOURI 


A  DISSERTATION 

Submitted  to  the  Catholic  Sisters  College  of  the  Catholic  University 

of  America  in  Partial  Fulfillment  of  the  Requirements 

for  the  Degree  Doctor  of  Philosophy 


WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 
JUNE,  1916 


QoS 


NATIONAL-CAPITAL  PRESS,  INC.,  WASHINOTON.   0.  C. 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

The  purpose  of  this  study  has  been  to  determine  the  part  which 
that  phase  of  philosophical  thought  known  as  mysticism  has 
played  as  a  creative  factor  in  English  poetry  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  An  effort  has  been  made,  first,  to  reach  a  definite 
conclusion  as  to  what  the  word  mysticism  connotes,  and  then  to 
adduce  specific  instances  of  this  characteristic  from  the  writings 
of  a  group  of  poets  selected  as  being  the  best  exponents  of  the 
type  of  mysticism  which  they  represent.  The  bibliographies 
contain  only  such  works  as  have  been  of  immediate  value  in 
preparing  this  dissertation. 

March  19,  1916. 


337668 


SOME  EVIDENCES  OF  MYSTICISM  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 
OF  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 

CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  I. — Mysticism:  Its  Definition  and  History 7 

CHAPTER  II. — The  Characteristics  of  Mysticism 17 

CHAPTER  III. — The  Relation  between  Philosophy  and  Poetry  £4 

CHAPTER  IV. — Wordsworth :  God  Sought  through  Nature ...  29 

CHAPTER  V. — Rossetti :  God  Sought  through  Beauty 36 

CHAPTER  VI. — Patmore :  God  Sought  through  Human  Love .  44 
CHAPTER    VII. — Francis    Thompson:  God    Sought    through 

Revelation 59 

CONCLUSION 74 

BIBLIOGRAPHY.  .  77 


CHAPTER  I 

MYSTICISM:  ITS  DEFINITION  AND  HISTORY 

The  word  "mysticism"  is  borrowed  from  the  Greek.  The 
HvffTCLL,  n€fj.vr]fjLevoL,  were  those  persons  who  were  privileged  to 
take  part  in  certain  ceremonies  periodically  performed  in  honor 
of  some  god.  The  word  implies  two  characteristics  in  those  so 
privileged :  first,  a  special  knowledge  of  divine  things,  obtained  by 
instruction  (juuko),  and  secondly,  the  ability  and  the  obligation 
to  maintain  secrecy  concerning  these  things  (/o»co).  "The  mystics 
are,  in  fact,  the  inner  circle  of  devotees  of  any  cult;  they  are  pos- 
sessed of  knowledge  which  partakes  of  the  nature  of  revelation 
rather  than  of  acquired  science,  and  which  is  imparted  in  considera- 
tion of  some  special  aptitude,  natural  or  acquired."1 

So  much  for  the  history  of  the  word:  the  experience  itself  has 
been  variously  defined.  St.  Bonaventure  says,  "Sapientia  enim 
haec  Mystica  Theologica  dicitur  a  Paulo  Apostolo  edocta,  a 
Dionysio  Areopagita  suo  discipulo,  conscripta,  quae  idem  est 
quod  extensio  amoris  in  Deum  per  amoris  desiderium."2  Gerson 
declares,  "Theologica  mystica  est  motio  anagogica  in  Deum  per 
amorem  fervidum  et  purum."3  Corderius  in  the  definition 
"Mystica  theologica>  si  vim  nominis  attendas  designat  quandam 
sacram  et  arcanam  de  Deo  divinisque  rebus  notitiam"4  points  out 
two  striking  notes  of  mysticism,  that  the  knowledge  is  sacred, 
and  not  for  all,  "arcanam." 

L'Abbe  Migne  gives  the  following  definition.  "La  mystique 
est  la  science  d'etat  surnaturel  de  Tame  humaine,  manifeste 
dans  le  corps  et  dans  1'ordre  des  choses  visible  par  des  effets 
egalement  surnaturels."5  In  Ribet  we  find,  "La  theologie  mys- 
tique, au  point  de  vue  subjectif  et  experimental,  nous  semble 
pouvoir  etre  definie;  une  attraction  surnaturelle  et  passive  de 
Tame,  vers  Dieu,  provenant  d'une  illumination  et  d'un  ernbrase- 


,  Mysticism:  Its  True   Nature  and   Value,  London,  1910,  Ch.  II, 
p.  1. 

2  St.  Bonaventurae  Opera,  Quaracchi,  1898,  Mystica  Theologica,  Prologus 
Tomus  Octavus,  p.  2. 

3  Gersonii   Joannis,    Opera,    Parisiis,    1606,    Mysticam    Theologiam,   Tertia 
pars  operum,  p.  276. 

4  Corderius,  in  Opera  S.  Dionysii  Areopagitae,  Migne,  P.  G.,  Paris,  1844, 
seq.,  Ill,  1003. 

6  Migne,  Dictionnaire  de  Mystique  Chrttienne,  Paris,  1847.     Tome  Trente- 
Cinquieme,  Introduction. 


8  SOME  EVIDENCES  OF  MYSTICISM  IN  ENGLISH 

ment  interieurs,  qui,  previennent  la  reflexion,  surpassent  1'effort 
humain,  et  peuvent  avoir  sur  le  corps  un  retentissement  merveil- 
leux  et  irresistible."6 

There  is  implied  in  all  these  definitions  the  idea  that  mysticism 
has  its  origin  in  "that  dim  consciousness  of  the  beyond  which  is  a 
part  of  our  human  nature,  and  which  is  the  raw  material  of  all 
religion,  philosophy,  and  art."7  Undoubtedly,  there  is  a  hunger 
and  thirst  of  the  soul,  as  well  as  of  the  body,  and  the  same  power 
which  gave  the  body  certain  senses,  together  with  a  capacity  and 
a  tendency  to  satisfy  them,  has  given  the  soul  certain  capacities 
and  tendencies  which  can  be  satisfied  only  by  knowledge  and  love. 
All  philosophy  of  life,  no  matter  what  trend  of  thought  it  follows, 
attempts  to  satisfy  this  twofold  longing,  but  mysticism  is  differ- 
entiated from  other  forms  of  philosophy  in  the  manner  in  which  it 
seeks  that  satisfaction. 

The  mystic  holds  as  a  fundamental  truth  that  back  of  all  the 
diverse  forms  of  reality  is  a  Unity,  and  Ultimate  Reality,  which  we 
call  God,  and  that  only  through  the  soul  can  this  truth  be  compre- 
hended. "Mysticism  considers  as  the  end  of  philosophy,  the 
direct  union  of  the  human  soul  with  the  divinity  through  con- 
templation and  love,  and  attempts  to  determine  the  processes 
and  means  of  realizing  this  end.  This  contemplation  is  not 
based  on  a  mere  analytical  knowledge  of  the  Infinite,  but  on  a 
direct  and  immediate  intuition  of  the  Infinite."8 

One  of  the  greatest  difficulties  in  the  study  of  mysticism  is  the 
lack  of  anything  like  historic  succession  in  the  development  of 
the  movement.  Mystics  seem  immune  from  the  laws  that  ordi- 
narily govern  human  expression.  "They  are  philosophers  and 
hermits,  unlettered  women  and  profound  scholars.  They  live  in 
modern  Paris  or  medieval  England,  or  the  story  of  their  lives  can 
be  but  faintly  discerned  through  the  rich  web  of  Eastern  tradition; 
they  are  legends  of  the  past;  they  travel  on  our  railroad  carriages 
with  us  today.  And  yet,  in  spite  of  the  dissimilarity  of  their 
origin,  there  is  a  wonderful  unanimity  in  their  teaching."9 

The  term  was  first  used  in  the  sense  in  which  we  now  apply  it, 
by  the  pseudo-Dionysius,  probably  a  Syrian  monk  of  the  sixth 

6  Ribet,  La  Mystique  Divine,  Paris,  1879,  Tome  Premier,  p.  14. 

7  Inge,  Christian  Mysticism,  London,  1899,  Lecture  I,  p.  5. 

8  Sauvage,  Art,  "Mysticism,"  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  Vol.  V,  p.  663. 

9  Thorold,  Introduction  to  the  Dialogue  of  St.  Catherine  of  Sienna,  London, 
1903,  p.  10. 


POETRY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY  9 

century,  whose  Mystical  Theology  has  played  so  prominent  a  part 
in  the  development  of  Christian  mysticism,  but  the  roots  of  the 
thought  itself  lay  in  the  Oriental  religions. 10  Mysticism  dominated 
in  the  philosophy  of  ancient  Egypt,  as  is  evident  from  the  extrava- 
gant symbolism  employed.  It  was  a  fundamental  element  in  the 
Taoism  of  Laotze.  The  climate  and  habit  of  life  in  India  tended 
to  produce  passivity,  and  the  Upanishads  teach  that  the  soul  or 
spiritual  consciousness  is  the  only  source  of  true  knowledge. 
The  Hindu  thinks  of  the  soul  as  a  great  eye  in  the  center  of  his 
being,  by  which  he  can  look  outward  and  penetrate  through 
appearance  to  reality.  Hence,  despising  matter,  he  bends  all  his 
faculties  within  his  spiritual  consciousness,  and  so  becomes  one 
with  Brahman,  the  universal  soul.  There  is  not  a  great  deal  of 
this  thought  in  Greece  until  Plato,  to  whom  the  desire  of  wisdom, 
or  love  of  beauty,  is  nothing  but  the  yearning  of  the  soul  to  be 
joined  to  what  is  akin  to  it.  Plato  is  regarded  as  the  source  of 
speculative  mysticism  in  Europe,  and  in  the  later  Platonic  schools 
contemplation  rather  than  reasoned  knowledge  became  the 
object  of  philosophy. 

Plotinus  (A.  D.  204-270)  was,  perhaps,  the  most  powerful 
exponent  of  Neo-Platonism.  He  was  an  Egyptian  WT!IO  studied 
in  Alexandria  at  a  time  when  that  city  was  the  greatest  center  of 
learning  in  the  world.  "The  form  of  his  thought  is  an  advanced 
Platonic  idealism  combined  with  the  conception  of  emanations 
from  the  Hermetic  philosophy,  with  elements  from  the  mysteries 
and  from  oriental  cults,  but  the  real  inspiration  came  from  his  own 
deep  mystical  experience  of  ecstatic  union  with  the  One."11 
There  can  be  little  doubt  about  the  genuineness  of  his  mystical 
experience,  "whether  it  was  no  more  than  a  strong  emotional 
realization  of  intellectual  principles  obtained  by  some  remarkable 
philosophical  acumen,"12  or  "one  of  those  manifestations  of  divine 
grace  outside  its  regular  channels,  the  occurrence  of  wrhich  from 
time  to  time  has  been  quite  unmistakable."13 

With  Plotinus  the  end  of  human  life  is  the  purification  of  the 
soul  and  its  gradual  assimilation  with  the  divinity.  His  works 
were  collected  by  his  pupil,  Porphyry,  and  arranged  in  six  Enneads. 


10  Cf.  Spurgeon,  Mysticism  in  English  Literature,  London,  1913,  Introduction, 
p.  15. 

11  Bailey,  Milton  and  Jakob  Boehme,  Oxford  University  Press,  1914,  p.  65. 

12  Sharpe,  Op.  cit.,  p.  155. 

13  Ibid.,  p.  156. 


10  SOME    EVIDENCES   OF   MYSTICISM    IN   ENGLISH 

Here  he  teaches  that  "Three  roads  lead  to  God — art,  love,  and 
philosophy.  The  artist  seeks  for  the  Idea  in  its  sensible  mani- 
festations; the  lover  seeks  it  in  the  human  soul;  the  philosopher 
seeks  for  it  in  the  sphere  in  which  it  dwells  without  alloy — in  the 
intelligible  world  and  in  God."14 

The  teachings  of  Plotinus,  transmitted  through  St.  Augustine 
(354-430),  and  Dionysius,  exercised  an  immense  influence  on 
Christian  mysticism.  While  the  Fathers  recognized  and  gladly 
incorporated  in  their  philosophy  what  they  knew  to  be  true  in 
pagan  thought,  yet  they  maintained  the  essential  inability  of  the 
mind  to  penetrate,  of  itself,  and  without  divine  illumination,  the 
mysteries  of  divine  love.  St.  Augustine  expressly  teaches  that 
we  can  know  the  essence  of  things  in  "rationibus  aeternis"  yet 
the  data  for  the  knowledge  must  be  supplied  by  the  senses.15 

Mysticism,  as  implying  a  peculiar  aptitude  for  certain  states 
of  mind  not  commonly  enjoyed  by  the  multitude,  existed  in  the 
Church  from  the  beginning.  The  Apostles  were  mystics  in  the 
truest  sense.  St.  Paul,  writing  to  the  Philippians  styles  himself  a 
"t&pvqjikris"*  and  certain  prayers  in  the  Liturgy  of  the  Mass 
are  still  said  ^UOTIKCOS.  Harnack,  in  his  Mission  and  Expansion 
of  Christianity  declares  this  to  be  one  of  its  sources  of  power  and 
appeal,  that  "It  has  mysteries  of  its  own,  which  it  sought  to 
fathom,  only  to  adore  them  again  in  silence;  and  secondly,  that  it 
preached  to  the  perfect  in  another  and  a  deeper  sense  than  it  did 
to  simple  folk."17  The  tradition  was  carried  on  by  Clement  of 
Alexandria,  by  the  Shepherd  of  Hernias,  by  St.  Ignatius,  who 
styled  himself  d&xfropos,  the  God-bearer,  thus  laying  claim  to 
intimate  mystical  experience. 

About  the  middle  of  the  ninth  century  the  works  of  Dionysius 
were  translated  from  Greek  into  Latin  by  the  great  Irish  scholar 
and  philosopher,  John  Scotus  Eriugena,  and  in  this  form  they 
were  a  mighty  factor  in  determining  the  life  and  thought  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  Through  the  teachings  of  William  of  Champeaux 
(1070-1121),  the  movement  gained  strength  in  France  during  the 
twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries.  It  numbered  among  its  defenders 
St.  Bernard  of  Clairvaux  (1091-1153),  and  the  group  of  mystical 
philosophers  known  as  the  Victorines.  In  them  mysticism  took 

l*Enneads  I,  3,  translated  by  Taylor,  London,  1817. 

15  Cf.  Quaestiones  LXXXIII,  C,  XL VI. 

16  Phil.,  IV,  12. 

17  Harnack,  Mission  and  Expansion  of  Christianity,  Vol.  II,  p.  237. 


POETRY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY  11 

its  place  as  a  regularly  organized  science. 18  They  had  the  medieval 
passion  for  allegory,  and  the  scholastic  love  for  classification,  and 
so  they  divide  the  stages  of  contemplation,  the  states  of  the  soul, 
and  the  degrees  of  divine  love,  and  make  them  conform  to  the 
mystic  numbers  seven,  four,  and  three.19  Their  writings  do 
not  appeal  to  modern  readers,  but  they  were  vitally  influential 
in  conditioning  the  development  of  later  mystics.  Their  works, 
and  those  of  St.  Bernard,  were  translated  into  English  in  the 
thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries,  probably  by  the  unknown 
author  of  the  "Cloud  of  Unknowing."  In  St.  Bernard,  and 
Richard  of  St.  Victor  we  have  two  strong  figures,  the  one  a  type 
of  the  political  mystic,  the  other  of  the  intellectual. 

In  the  same  century  there  appeared  in  Germany  a  line  qf  women 
mystics  not  less  remarkable  for  spiritual  intuition  than  for  literary 
ability.  St.  Hildegarde20  (1098-1179)  and  St.  Elizabeth  of 
Schoenau  (1138-1165),  were  able  representatives  of  that  mysticism 
which  prompts  to  energetic  public  service  in  a  good  cause,  and  of 
which  St.  Catherine  of  Sienna  is  the  most  familiar  example. 
St.  Hildegarde  sent  her  letters  like  firebrands  over  Europe,  striving 
to  enkindle  in  indifferent  rulers  and  sluggish  people  something  of 
her  own  enthusiastic  idealism. 

In  the  next  century  we  find  three  women  of  genius,  whose  home 
was  in  the  Benedictine  Convent  of  Helfta,21  recording  their 
mystical  experience  in  no  mean  literary  form.  St.  Gertrude,  more 
absorbed  in  her  subjective  experience  than  St.  Mechtild  of  Hack- 
born  (d.  1310),  is  a  characteristic  Catholic  mystic  of  the  visionary 
type.  Mechtild  of  Magdeburg  (1212-1299),  is  the  author  of  "The 
Flowing  Light  of  the  Godhead"  remarkable  for  poetic  beauty  and 
for  individuality  of  expression.22 

The  mysticism  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi  (1182-1226)  descended  to 
his  spiritual  son  and  biographer,  St.  Bona venture  (1221-1274), 
who  combined  a  contemplative  nature  with  vast  intellectual 
powers,  and  whose  teaching,  as  a  consequence,  has  dominated 
orthodox  mysticism  in  all  succeeding  ages. 

In  the  period  of  transition  from  the  medieval  to  the  modern 
world  all  was  unrest — men  yearned  after  they  knew  not  what,  and 


18  Cf.  Turner,  History  of  Philosophy,  New  York,  1903,  p.  303. 

19  Cf.  Migne,  Patrologia  Latina,  Paris,  1844,  seq.,  t.  175-177-196. 

20  Cf.  Ibid.,  t.  197. 

21  Cf .  Robinson,  A.  M.  F.,  End  of  the  Middle  Ages,  London,  1889,  p.  45. 

22  Cf.  Welch,  Of  Six  Medieval  Women,  London,  1913. 


y 


12  SOME   EVIDENCES   OF  MYSTICISM   IN   ENGLISH 

sought  for  light,  they  knew  not  where.  The  old  issues  of  Nomi- 
nalism and  Realism  were  revived  by  William  of  Ockham  (1280- 
1349),  Albert  of  Saxony  (d.  1390),  and  Peter  D'Ailly  (1350-1425). 
An  abundance  of  error  crept  into  their  teachings,  actuated  as  they 
were  by  a  spirit  of  intellectual  pride.  Some  turned  to  the  ancient 
classics  for  the  consolation  they  sought  and  attempted  to  revive 
pagan  ideals.23  Many,  ignorant  and  obstinate,  without  either 
the  requisite  knowledge  or  the  necessary  patience  to  discover  the 
laws  of  nature,  sought  to  wrest  from  her  the  secrets  of  which  she 
is  possessed,  by  the  process  of  magic,  astrology  and  simulated 
intercourse  with  spirits.24  Others,  again,  weary  of  endless  dis- 
putation, sought  knowledge  in  a  truer  source,  in  union  with  the 
Godhead. 

Turner,  in  his  History  of  Philosophy,  writing  of  this  period,  says  : 
"The  revival  of  the  principles  of  mysticism  was  a  natural  result 
of  the  decadent  condition  of  philosophy  during  the  fourteenth 
and  fifteenth  centuries.  The  heaping  of  subtlety  on  subtlety  and 
the  interminable  controversies  of  the  advocates  of  Thomism  and 
Scotism  bewildered  and  disgusted  the  serious  seeker  after  spiritual 
light,  and  drove  him  eventually  to  abandon  all  intellectual  phil- 
osophy in  favor  of  a  life  of  contemplation  and  prayer.  Many 
with  the  author  of  the  Imitation  of  Christ  that  it  is  better 


^71$  to  feel  contrition  than  to  know  its  definition,  and  that  he  is  very 
learned  indeed  who  does  the  will  of  God  and  renounces  his  own 
will."25  Such  was  the  case  in  Germany  at  this  time.  We  see 
here  a  group  of  three  mystics,26  Eckhart  (1260-1329),  Tauler 
(1300-1360),  and  Suso  (1300-1365),  all  three  Dominicans,  all 
living  and  working  near  the  Rhine,  yet  affording  a  striking  contrast. 
Eckhart  was  strong  intellectually,  and  by  some  is  looked  upon  as 
the  founder  of  German  philosophy.  He  taught  that  "'The  light 
which  is  the  Son  of  God,  and  the  shining  —  das  Ausscheinen  —  of 
that  light  in  the  creature  world  are  inseparable.  The  birth  of  the 
Son,  and  the  Creation  of  the  WTorld  were  one  act."27  For  this 
doctrine  he  was  condemned.  Tauler  was  a  missionary,  possessing 


23  Cf.  Weber,  History  of  Philosophy,  translated  by  Thilly,  Xew  York,  1896, 
p.  261. 

24  Cf.  Gorres,  Die  Christliche  Mystik,  Regensburg,  1842,  Band  IV. 
"Turner,  History  of  Philosophy,  New  York,  1903,  p.  411. 

26  Cf .  Preger,  Geschichte  der  deutschen  Mystik  im  Mittdalter,  Leipsic,  1874. 
Erdmann,  History  of  Philosophy,  translation  edited  by  Hough,  London,  1890, 
p.  548,  ff. 

27  Stockl,  Geschichte  der  Philosophic,  Mainz,  1888,  par.  3,  6,  p.  494. 


POETRY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY  13 

a  broad  sympathy  with  humanity,  and  a  deep  spirituality.  Suso, 
whose  writings  have  a  simple  beauty,  was  a  romantic  mystic, 
deeply  concerned  with  his  own  soul,  and  his  personal  relation 
with  God.  Associated  with  these  are  the  names  of  Ruysbroek 
(1293-1381),  and  Thomas  a  Kempis  (1380-1471),  whose  Imitation 
of  Christ  has  been  a  guide  and  consolation  for  Christian  mystics 
of  widely  varying  types  and  ages.  His  works,  together  with  those 
of  Suso,  appear  in  English  manuscript  early  in  the  fifteenth 
century,  taking  their  place  by  the  side  of  those  of  Richard  Rolle 
of  Hampole  (1300-1349).  Rolle,  who  was  educated  at  Oxford, 
became  enamored  of  the  mystic  life,  and  turned  hermit.  His 
descriptions  of  his  communion  with  Divine  Love,  are  touched 
with  a  true  poetic  spirit,  and  give  evidence  of  an  ardent  zeal  for 
souls.28 

In  the  British  Museum  a  number  of  mystical  works  of  the  four- 
teenth century  are  preserved  in  manuscript.  Among  these  is 
The  Cloud  of  Unknowing™  whose  authorship  has  never  been  deter- 
mined, but  which  gives  evidence  of  having  been  largely  influenced 
by  Dionysius  and  the  Victor ines.  Two  other  famous  English 
mystics  belong  to  this  period,  Walter  Hylton30  (d.  1396),  and  Julian 
of  Norwich*  (1343-1413)  who  in  her  Revelations  of  Divine  Love*1 
exhibits  at  once  the  qualities  of  a  poet,  a  prophet,  and  a  divine 
lover. 

About  the  same  time,  another  woman  of  great  genius,  St. 
Catherine  of  Sienna,  was  proving  to  the  world  that  in  one  character, 
the  traits  of  the  visionary  and  of  the  practical  philanthropist, 
the  constructive  thinker  and  the  skilful  administrator,  may  be 
finely  balanced.  She  was  at  once  politician,  teacher,  and  con- 
templative, and  was  able,  in  her  short  career,  to  render  a  signal 
service  to  religion.32 

Denis,  the  Carthusian  ( 1402-1471), 33  was  a  theologian,  an  ardent 
admirer  of  the  pseudo-Dionysius.  His  works  helped  to  carry 
over  to  the  modern  world  the  best  traditions  of  Christian 
mysticism. 

28  Cf .  The  Fire  of  Love  and  The  Mending  of  Life,  London,  1896,  edited  by 
R.  Misyer. 

29  Cf.  Gardner,  The  Cell  of  Self  Knowledge,  London,  1910. 

30  Cf.  Inge,  Studies  of  English  Mystics,  London,  1905. 

31  Cf .  Revelations  of  Divine  Love,  edited  by  Warrack,  London,  1912. 

f.  Gardner,  St.  Catherine  of  Sienna,  London,  1907.     The  Divine  Dialogue 
of  St.  Catherine  of  Sienna,  translated  by  Thorold,  London,  1896. 

33  Cf .  Gurdon,  Art.  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  Vol.  IV,  pp.  734-736.  Siegfried, 
"Dionysius,  the  Carthusian,"  Amer.  Eccl.  Review,  XXI,  512-527. 


29C 

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14  SOME    EVIDENCES    OF   MYSTICISM    IN   ENGLISH 

Spanish  mysticism  first  found  definite  expression  in  the  life 
and  writings  of  St.  Ignatius  of  Loyola  (1491-1556).  His  Spiritual 
Exercises  are  a  concrete  exposition  of  the  several  stages  of  psycho- 
logical growth  in  the  life  history  of  every  true  mystic,  and  were 
a  formative  influence  in  determining  the  inner  life  of  that  great 
spiritual  teacher,  St.  Teresa  (1515-1582),  who  with  St.  John  of  the 
Cross  (1542-1591),  seems  destined  to  remain  for  all  time  the 
sanest  type  of  pure  Catholic  mystic. 

The  religious  mysticism  of  the  seventeenth  century,  while 
represented  on  the  orthodox  side  by  so  great  a  master  in  the 
spiritual  life  as  St.  Francis  of  Sales  (1567-1622),  tended  to  one  of 
those  strange  aberrations34  which  form  a  not  infrequent  phase 
of  its  development.  Miguel  de  Molinos35  (1640-1697)  and  Madam 
Guyon  (1618—1717)  taught  a  practical  passivity  and  repudiation 
of  the  body  which  led  to  their  condemnation  by  the  Church. 

Among  Protestant  mystics  we  have  Sebastian  Franck  (1500- 
1543)  and  Jakob  Bohme  (1575-1624). 

In  the  philosophy  of  Descartes  (1596-1649),  in  which  all 
objective  knowledge  is  made  subservient  to  the  study  of  our  own 
consciousness,  latent  elements  of  mysticism  are  contained,  which 
were  developed  by  Pascal  (1623-1662),  by  Geulincx  (1625-1669), 
and  Malebranche  (1638-1715).  In  Spinoza  (1632-1677)  there  is 
a  pantheistic  mysticism,  wiiile  from  the  philosophy  of  Kant 
(1724-1804)  evolved  the  romantic  mysticism  of  Fichte  (1762- 
1814),  Novalis  (1772-1801),  and  Schelling  (1775-1854).  It  is 
this  aspect  of  mysticism  which  through  Coleridge,  profoundly 
influenced  much  of  the  English  literature  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

A  tendency  to  mysticism  as  a  mental  trait  is  very  pronounced 
in  the  philosophic  thought  of  the  last  decade  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  finds  two  powerful  exponents  in  Euchen36  and 
Bergson.37 

"Strange  as  the  statement  may  sound  in  the  midst  of  the  rush 
and  riot  of  our  merely  industrial  pursuits  and  ambitions,  it  is 
nevertheless  true  that  the  spirit  of  mysticism  is  in  the  air.  Spiritu- 
alism, in  most,  if  not  in  all  of  its  forms,  Christian  Science,  Theos- 
ophy,  Buddhism,  even  Hypnotism  in  its  illegitimate  uses,  and  the 
many  other  forms  of  occultism  which  prevail  today,  are  simply 

34  Cf.  Pace,  Art.  "Quietism,"  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  Vol.  XII,  p.  608-610. 

35  Cf.  Ott,  Art.  "Molinos,"  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  Vol.  X,  p.  105-106. 

36  Der  Sinn  und  Wert  des  Lebens,  translated  by  Gibson,  London,  1909. 

37  Underbill,  "Bergson  and  the  Mystics,"  English  Review,  February,  1912. 


POETRY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY  15 

diverse  practices  of  a  false  and  reprehensible  mysticism.  The 
country  is  covered  with  votaries,  victims,  priests  and  priestesses 
of  the  occult.  It  is,  in  fact,  a  sign  of  the  times.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  old  heresies  have  been  riddled  to  pieces  by  the  persistent 
attacks  of  modern  science,  the  license  of  private  interpretation, 
higher  criticism,  journalistic  ridicule,  secular  education,  and  the 
growing  contempt  in  which  all  shams  and  pretences  in  the  garb  of 
religion  are  everywhere  held  in  literature  and  in.  the  life  of  the 
people."38 

Tertullian  says  the  soul  is  by  nature  Christian,39  and  with  more 
truth  may  it  be  said  that  man  is  naturally  curious  about  God, 
and  everything  touching  the  unseen  world;  about  heaven  and  hell, 
the  unseen  forces  of  nature,  the  motor  power  of  his  own  being, 
and  those  vast,  undiscovered  regions  which  must  be  for  him,  for- 
ever unexplored,  if  reason  be  his  sole  guide.  Even  when  he  fails 
to  perceive  it,  or  refuses  to  acknowledge  it,  in  his  moments  of 
deep  thought  there  is  borne  in  upon  man  the  conviction  that  his 
most  substantial  interests  lie  in  the  direction  of  the  spirit,  and 
that  the  solution  of  all  the  vexing  problems  of  existence  lies 
ultimately  in  the  acceptance  of  the  belief  in  another  world,  and  in 
the  knowledge  and  love  of  God. 

"Back  of  the  Rationalism  and  Agnosticism  of  the  day,  may  we 
read  a  strong  religious  feeling  crying  out  for  life  and  light  and 
warmth.  Could  these  geniuses  ascend  the  heights  traversed 
by  the  great  intellects — could  they  see  them  as  Plato  saw  them, 
and  as  Clement  and  Augustine  and  Aquinas  and  a  Kempis  saw 
them — they,  too,  would  find  that  rest  and  that  fulness  of  life  that 
belong  to  those  dwelling  in  the  broad  daylight  of  God's  truth."40 

Charles  Kingsley,41  in  an  article  contributed  to  Fraser  more 
than  fifty  years  ago,  speaks  of  mysticism  as  "a  mode  of  thought 
and  feeling  now  all  but  extinct  in  England"  yet  mysticism  was 
then,  as  is  now,  very  far  from  being  dead.  Mysticism,  like  other 
modes  of  thought  which  constantly  recur,  has  conquered  for  itself 
a  place  in  the  human  mind,  and  "the  very  universality  of  the 
tendency  argues  some  want  which  it  fulfills,  a  capacity  of  the  soul 

38  Conway,    S.    J.,    "Nature    of    Catholic    Mysticism,"    American   Catholic 
Quarterly,  XXX,  683. 

39  Cf.  Tertulliani  Opera,  Libri  Apologetici,  cur.  E.  F.  Leopold,  Lipsiae,  1839, 
Pars  I,  p.  81. 

40  Azarias,  Brother,  Essays  Miscellaneous,  Chicago,  1896,  p.  170. 

41  Cf.  Art.  "The  New  Mysticism,"  Quart.  Rev.,  CXC,  79. 


16  SOME    EVIDENCES   OF   MYSTICISM    IN    ENGLISH 

for  more  perfection  than  we  can  obtain  through  knowledge  of 
created  things."42 

Ferdinand  Brunetiere,  in  La  Renaissance  de  I'ldealisme,  tells 
us  that  modern  mysticism  is  really  a  revolt  against  the  hard  and 
dry  dicta  of  the  high  priests  of  modern  science  who  attempted  to 
pronounce  the  death  sentence  on  spiritual  philosophy.  It  takes 
hold  of  those  who  are  unwilling  to  reject  the  findings  of  science, 
yet  are  eager  to  discover  what  is  the  unknown  power  w^hich  binds 
together  the  patent  facts  and  forces  of  nature;  others,  perplexed 
at  the  potency  of  evil  in  individuals,  and  in  the  world,  are  attracted 
by  the  refuge  it  offers;  others  again  are  fascinated  by  occult 
phenomena,  which  science  has  not  yet  been  able  to  explain.  The 
movement  is  the  result  of  "the  mystical  instinct  asserting  itself 
against  the  usurpation  of  the  official  philosophy  of  Positivism; 
it  amounts  to  an  attempt  to  enter  into  the  "arcana"  of  nature  and 
human  life,  which  scientific  Agnostics  definitely  refuse  to  approach; 
it  is  an  endeavor  to  indemnify  us  for  the  spiritual  loss  we  have 
sustained  or  are  in  danger  of  sustaining  by  accepting  a  purely 
mechanical  view  of  the  universe."43 

It  is  to  religion  that  man  looks  to  cultivate  this  mystic  instinct 
of  his  nature.  Mysticism  follows  the  lead  of  religion,  and  as 
there  is  but  one  true  and  many  false  religions,  so  there  is  but  one 
true  and  many  false  cults  of  mysticism.  All  mysticism  has  in  it 
a  strong  element  of  the  supernatural,  yet  this  has  not  always'been 
developed  along  lines  harmonious  with  reason  and  revelation. 

Before  discussing  the  place  wiiich  mysticism  holds  as  a  creative 
factor  in  the  poetry  of  the  day,  it  seems  well  to  consider  the 
characteristics  of  mysticism,  the  notes  which  differentiate  the 
true  from  the  false  mysticism,  and  to  call  attention  to  the  fact 
that  in  the  Catholic  Church  alone  can  mysticism,  in  its  purest 
form,  exist. 

42  Sauvage,  Op.  tit.,  p.  664. 

43  "The  New  Mysticism,"  Op.  cit.,  p.  88. 


POETRY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY  17 

CHAPTER  II 

THE    CHARACTERISTICS    OF   MYSTICISM 

Man  is  a  compound  of  matter  and  spirit  so  substantially  united 
that  they  act  as  a  unit,  and  by  their  action  put  him  in  relation  with 
a  threefold  world — the  world  of  matter,  the  world  of  men,  and  the 
world  of  spirits.  Yet,  notwithstanding  their  substantial  union, 
mind  and  matter  possess  a  degree  of  independence,  and  a  certain 
power  in  determining  the  acts  for  which  they,  as  a  unit,  are 
responsible.44  When  a  balance  is  preserved,  man  is  said  to  act 
normally;  but  it  may  so  happen  that  all  the  life  forces  are  exercised 
in  the  benefit  of  matter,  and  we  have  the  mere  animal  life:  on 
the  other  hand,  the  spiritual  may  be  so  cultivated  that  the  activ- 
ities of  the  body  are  forced  to  occupy  a  secondary  place,  and  we 
have  a  life  analogous  to  that  of  pure  spirits. 

Persons  in  this  condition  are  possessed  of  a  knowledge  and 
experience  foreign  to,  and  beyond,  the  experience  of  most  men,  and 
inexplicable  on  natural  grounds.  Here  we  have  the  first  note 
of  true  mysticism.  It  is  something  supernatural,  but  not  unnat- 
ural, for  "mysticism  of  every  kind  is  wound  up  with  the  dual 
nature  of  man,  and  while  it  plays  with  objects  and  experiences 
lying  above  and  beyond  the  sphere  of  normal  human  activity,  it 
does  not,  in  any  instance,  call  forth  the  play  of  forces  the  poten- 
tiality of  which  is  not  rooted  in  man's  faculties."45 

The  sphere  of  man's  activity  is  manifold,  and  the  phenomena  of 
mysticism  appear  whenever  any  element  attempts  to  get  into 
direct  and  immediate  intercourse  with  an  object.  When  the 
object  sought  is  God,  we  have  true  or  divine  mysticism:  but  man 
may  give  himself  wholly  to  the  study,  service,  and  worship  of  the 
forces,  mysteries  and  phenomena  of  nature,  and  we  have  what  is 
called  nature-mysticism.  This  was  the  mysticism  of  pagan 
antiquity,  and  it  is  still  designated  as  such  by  those  who  "look 
for  mystical  knowledge  not  beyond,  but  in  the  material,  intellectual 
and  emotional  life  in  which  our  lot  is  cast.  It  regards  this  world 
as  but  a  small  fragment  of  a  much  larger  whole,  and  as  made  up 
of  many  elements  all  of  which  are  not  discoverable,  so  at  least  as 
to  be  clearly  distinguished,  by  either  our  bodily  or  our  intellectual 


44  Cf.  Summa  TheoL,  Quaes.,  LXXVI,  translation  I,  3,  p.  20,  ff. 
46  Conway,  S.  J.,  Op.  cit.t  XXX,  685. 


18  SOME    EVIDENCES    OF   MYSTICISM    IN    ENGLISH 

faculties.  But  every  part  of  it  is,  in  this  view,  connected  with 
and  symbolic  of  something  infinitely  greater  than  itself.  It 
embodies  and  illustrates  the  operation  of  vast  cosmic  laws,  it 
gives  evidence  of  a  divine  benevolence  which  reaches  further 
than  our  utmost  vision  can  follow :  it  is  lit  by  a  ray  from  the  sun 
of  perfect  beauty  that  lies  below  the  horizon  of  earthly  existence."46 

Inge  calls  this  "the  attempt  to  realize  the  presence  of  the  living 
God  in  the  soul  and  in  nature,  or  more  generally,  the  attempt 
to  realize  in  thought  and  feeling,  the  immanence  of  the  temporal 
in  the  eternal,  and  of  the  eternal  in  the  temporal.47  Those  who 
teach  that  creatures  are  but  so  many  mirrors  wherein  the  goodness, 
and  power,  and  wisdom  of  God  are  reflected,  and  that  we  have 
but  to  look  therein  to  acquire  a  true  knowledge  of  Him,  belong 
to  the  cult  of  nature-mystics.  Believing  as  they  do,  that  every- 
thing outward  and  visible  corresponds  to  some  invisible  entity 
which  is  its  spiritual  cause,  they  hold  that  every  new  insight  into 
the  nature  of  things  is,  of  itself,  a  growth  in  the  knowledge  and 
love  of  the  Creator. 

There  is  nothing  essentially  wrong  in  this  doctrine,  for  since 
Nature  in  all  its  mysterious  forces  is  the  work  of  God,  it  can  be 
evil  neither  in  itself  nor  in  its  relation  to  man.  There  can  be  no 
objection  to  the  theory  that  "something  of  the  nature  and' will  of 
God  can  be  discerned  in  all  created  things,  that  He  is  truly  reflected 
in  them,  and  that  their  reflection  can  be  distinguished  with  in- 
creasing clearness  as  we  draw  near  to  the  perfect  human  state."4 
The  danger  lies  in  mistaking  the  "vision  of  Nature"  for  the  "vision 
of  God,"  and  in  overlooking  the  fact  that  the  effects  of  sin  have 
been  felt  to  the  uttermost  bounds  of  creation — that  through  the 
fall  a  double  principle  has  invaded  the  universe.  "Two  cities, 
the  city  of  God  and  the  city  of  Satan,  exist  everywhere  and  always, 
and  man,  placed  in  the  midst  of  their  battles  finds  as  well  in  the 
evil  seeds  which  sin  has  deposited  in  his  being,  as  in  the  good  which 
remained  to  him  after  the  fall,  attractions  which  may  and  do 
solicit  him  in  one  direction  as  well  as  in  the  other,  making  him 
party  to  the  powers  of  evil  as  well  as  a  votary  to  the  spirits  which 
do  the  work  of  God  in  the  world."49 

God's  presence   in   the  world   may   be  considered   from   two 


46  Sharpe,  Op,  cit.,  p.  9. 

47  Op.  cit.,  p.  5. 

48  Ibid.,  p.  26. 

49  Conway,  Op.  cit.,  p.  691. 


POETRY    OF   THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY  19 

aspects.  In  one  point  of  view  God  is  everywhere  present  in  crea- 
tion: He  is  present  as  the  efficient  cause  from  which  everything 
derives  its  being;  He  is  present  as  the  intelligent  designer  and 
supreme  ruler  of  all  that  is.  He  is  in  the  heart  of  all  things, 
"per  essentiam,  presentiam  et  potentiam."50  "In  Him  we  live 
and  move  and  have  our  being,"51  yet  He  is  absolutely  distinct 
from  all  creatures  by  the  very  nature  of  His  being,  which  is 
absolute  and  independent.  Creatures  are  necessarily  dependent, 
and  are  like  to  God  only  by  virtue  of  the  being  which  is  com- 
municated to  them  by  Him.  No  intelligence,  wisdom,  beauty,  or 
power  in  any  degree  of  perfection  whatsoever,  can  in  a  creature, 
give  us  an  adequate  idea  of  the  manner  in  which  these  attributes 
are  possessed  by  God.  God  can  be  known  only  by  intellectual 
separation  from  all  creatures,  and  hence  must  be  apprehended  or 
experienced  in  a  wholly  different  manner  from  that  in  which  we 
experience  created  existence.  Thus  God,  while  said  to  be  im- 
manent in  creation,  is  still  transcendent.52 

There  is  another  view  in  which  God  is  said  to  be  immanent  in 
the  universe :  this  holds  that  God  is  not  only  present  in  the  universe, 
but  that  he  is  mingled  with  it,  that  God  and  nature  are  but  two 
aspects  of  one  substance.63  God  cannot  be  outside  Nature,  for 
there  is  no  outside,  and  He  cannot  be  distinct  from  it  because  He 
is  the  underlying  Reality.  Still  another  view  regards  Nature  as  a 
mode  of  God's  being,54  a  moment  in  His  self-realization.  Nature 
is  identical  with  God,  but  God  is  more  than  nature,  since  He  is 
prior  to  nature  in  order  of  thought,  though  not  necessarily  in 
order  of  time.  In  this  conception  creation  is  a  necessary  part  of 
God,  and  He  transcends  nature  only  in  the  sense  of  being  more 
than,  not  different  from,  nature.  In  either  of  these  views  the 
knowledge  of  nature  is  the  knowledge  of  God,  the  love  of  nature 
is  the  love  of  God,  and  the  experience  of  nature  is  the  experience  of 
God.  This  type  of  myjtidSm_lej,d^tojp^nthejsm,  and  cannot 
be  reconciled  with  the  Catholic  doctrine  of  the  relation  between 
Creator  and  creature.  It  is  true,  God  made  all  things  good,  but 
"sin  has  marred  the  order  of  God's  creation,  has  put  man  in  a 
false  relation  to  all  these  things;  it  has  given  them  a  hold  upon  him, 

™Summa.  Theol.,  I,  VIII,  3. 

61  Acts,  XVII,  28. 

62  Cf.  Sharpe,  Op.  cit.,  p.  138. 

63  Cf.    Weber,    History   of   Philosophy,   translated   by   Thilly,    New    York, 
1896,  p.  328. 

64  Cf.  Turner,  History  of  Philosophy,  New  York,  1903,  pp.  470-471. 


20  SOME   EVIDENCES   OF  MYSTICISM   IN   ENGLISH 

he  has  sunk  under  their  influence,  they  have  enslaved  him ;  instead 
of  raising  him  to  God,  he  has  allowed  them  to  drag  him  down,  and 
to  blind  him,  so  that  he  cannot  see  God.55  Man  chose  the  creature 
before  the  Creator,  and  made  created  things  an  end  in  themselves. 
"They  were  meant  to  be  channels  of  approach  to  God — revelations 
of  God — but  the  channels  have  become  clogged,  the  creatures  have 
become  opaque,  and  at  last  they  form  a  barrier  between  the 
soul  and  God;"56  hence  the  "via  Remotionis"  of  the  true  mystics. 
Yet  the  Catholic  mystic  no  more  despises  nature  than  he  despises 
grace.  He  believes  "It  is  the  business  of  religion  to  inculcate 
that  view  of  life  which  enables  us  to  look  out  on  nature  as  God's 
creation,  distinct  indeed  from  Him  in  substance,  but  filled 
with  the  beauty  of  His  presence,  and  pulsating  with  the  glad- 
ness of  His  beauty  and  the  joy  of  His  supremely  perfect  life/'57 
Neither  does  he  deny  that  nature  may  be  a  medium  between  God 
and  man,  but  he  does  insist  that  it  is  only  a  medium,  and  not  a 
self -sufficing  one;  that  to  use  it  effectively  the  senses  must  be 
purified,  and  hence  the  doctrine  of  renunciation  and  purgation  so 
strenuously  insisted  on  by  mystical  writers. 

The  object  sought  in  this  renunciation  is  union  with  God. 
"It  was  not  in  mere  weariness  of  their  fellow  men,  nor  in  bitterness 
of  disappointment,  nor  in  ambitious  hope  of  mounting  upward 
unhelped  and  being  like  God  that  they  (the  mystics),  parted  with 
most  of  the  innocent  joys  of  life.  They  were  enamored  of  the 
"Divine  Cloud,"  the  bright  darkness  of  the  Divine  mysteries 
hidden  within  them;  they  felt  that  His  Divine  Majesty,  in  the 
words  of  Blessed  Julian  of  Norwich,  had  set  up  His  "See"  in  their 
hearts.  Their  one  aim  was  to  blunt  the  world's  after  images  which 
haunted  their  thought,  so  that,  if  His  majesty  thought  fit,  some 
passing  image  might  be  flashed  upon  their  expectant  souls."58 
For  this  they  were  willing  and  prepared  to  pass  through  those 
stages  of  development  so  graphically  described  by  St.  Teresa,59 
St.  John  of  the  Cross,60  and  other  mystics. 

The   first   stages   of   this   development   are   merely   negative, 


55  Maturin,  Some  Principles  and   Practices  of  the  Spiritual  Life,  London, 
1907,  p.  40. 

56  Ibid.,  p.  47. 

67  Turner,  "The  Personality  of  God,"  Catholic  University  Bulletin,  XIV,  184. 
58  McNabb,  Introduction  to  the  "Anchoresses  of  the  West,"  by  Steele,  London, 
1903,  p.  XII. 

69  Cf.  The  Interior  Castle,  London,  1906. 
80  Cf.  The  Ascent  of  Mount  Carmel,  London,  190G. 


POETRY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY  21 

consisting  as  they  do  in  the  purification  of  the  soul  from  actual 
sin,  from  worldly  desires,  and  from  certain  entanglements  of  the 
will  and  senses  which  hold  it  bound  to  creatures.  The  work  of 
sanctification  is  accomplished  through  extirpation  and  spiritual 
upbuilding.  True  mysticism  is  founded  on  abnegation,  which 
results  in  a  twofold  purification,  that  of  the  senses  and  that  of 
the  soul.  The  divine  necessity  of  pain  is  set  forth  in  the  writings 
of  all  the  mystics:  it  breathes  from  every  page  of  the  Imitation. 
Tauler  has  put  this  beautifully  when  he  makes  Christ  say,  "Learn 
that  My  divine  nature  never  worked  so  nobly  in  human  nature  as 
by  suffering:  and  because  suffering  is  so  efficacious,  it  is  sent  out 
of  great  love.  I  understand  the  weakness  of  human  nature  at 
all  times,  and  out  of  love  and  righteousness  I  lay  no  heavier  burden 
on  man  than  he  can  bear.  The  crown  must  be  firmly  pressed 
down  that  is  to  bud  and  blossom  in  the  Eternal  presence  of  My 
Heavenly  Father.  The  deeper  and  more  supernaturally  a  man 
crushes  himself  beneath  all  things,  the  more  supernaturally  will 
he  be  drawn  above  all  things."61  These  sufferings  are  in  a  sense 
self-imposed.  The  sense  of  unworthiness  which  follows  the 
"awakening  of  the  soul,"  has  been  called,  "the  reflex  action  which 
follows  the  first  touch  of  God"62  the  result  of  which  is  a  series  of 
strongly  marked  oscillations  between  pleasure  and  pain,  well 
described  by  St.  Augustine  when  he  says,  "I  was  swept  up  to  Thee 
by  Thy  Beauty,  and  torn  away  from  Thee  by  my  own  weight."63 
The  normal  course  of  mysticism  proceeds  first  by  wray  of  devout 
preparation  in  the  discharge  of  ordinary  Christian  duties,  and  the 
use  of  the  ordinary  means  of  grace;  next  it  leads  the  soul  into  the 
immediate  presence  of  God,  as  an  experienced  reality,  and  not  as  a 
concept  or  imagination;  the  third  stage  consists  of  a  progressive 
union  with  God.  In  true  mysticism  God,  not  man,  is  the  active 
force:  the  soul  must  be  called  to  this  state  by  God  alone,  and 
though  she  may  prepare  herself  by  the  ascetic  practices  of  the 
Christian  life,  yet  she  must  passively  await  the  moment  when  God 
will  deign  to  open  to  her  the  inner  courts.64  In  St.  Teresa's  well 
known  description  of  the  different  states,  the  first  three  "Mansions" 
are  devoted  to  preparation:  in  the  fourth  there  is  a  blending  of 


61  Tauler,  The  Inner  Way,  New  York,  1908,  p.  114. 
"Underbill,  Mysticism,  London,  1911,  p.  243. 

63  Con/.,  Bk.  VII,  Ch.  XVII. 

64  Cf.  Saint  Jean  de  la  Croix,  Vive  Flamme,  quoted  in  Saudreau,  Lea  Degres 
de  la  vie  Spirituelle,  Paris,  1903,  Tome  2,  p.  21. 


%%  SOME    EVIDENCES    OF   MYSTICISM    IN    ENGLISH 

natural  and  supernatural  prayer,  but  the  prayer  of  union  and 
spiritual  marriage  described  in  the  last  are  wholly  supernatural.65 

Gerson66  attempts  to  define  the  precise  nature  of  mystical 
contemplation.  He  divides  the  powers  of  the  soul  into  cognitive 
and  affective:  these  two  work  together.  Their  first  function  is 
mere  cogitation — discursive  consideration  of  the  objects  of  sense; 
then  comes  meditation,  or  the  concentrated  application  of  reason 
to  these  objects,  and  the  production  by  it  of  the  abstract  ideas; 
these,  again,  can  be  contemplated  by  the  simple  intelligence  apart 
from  sense  perception.  So  far  all  is  natural;  the  cognitive  and 
affective  faculties  act  mutually  on  one  another,  and  on  the  objects 
presented  to  them.  But  above  all  natural  objects  is  the  divine 
presence  which  is  known  by  special  divine  favor,  not  as  an  abstract 
idea  resulting  from  meditation,  but  as  the  immediate  object  of 
love,  natural  or  supernatural. 

In  its  most  perfect  expression  this  contemplative  knowledge  of 
God  is  ecstasy.  In  this  state  all  life  seems  to  go  out  into  the  exer- 
cise of  the  illuminated  mind:  all  the  elements  of  being  converge 
toward  this  one  absorbing  activity,  and  the  ordinary  means 
through  which  communion  with  God  was  maintained  are  now,  to 
all  intents  and  purposes,  suspended.  This  is  the  highest  exercise 
of  true  mysticism,  and  from  it  emanate  all  the  preternatural 
features  of  the  mystical  life.67  In  these  favored  hours,  according 
to  St.  John  of  the  Cross,  "the  substance  of  God  touches  the  sub- 
stance of  the  soul."68  This  state  is  of  necessity,  of  short  duration, 
but  from  it,  "The  human  soul,  fixed  at  last  in  God,  her  true  center, 
slowly  feels  her  way  to  a  perfect  equilibrium.  All  her  powers, 
the  mysterious  forces  of  physical  instinct,  no  less  than  the  flights 
of  pure  intellect  come  by  degrees  to  express  themselves  in  their 
true  hierarchy,  an  order  so  inevitable  in  its  gradual  development, 
so  convincing  in  its  final  achievement,  that  the  poet's  words  are 
seen  to  be  after  all  but  sober  fact : 

"By  Grace  Divine,  not  otherwise 
O  Nature,  are  we  thine."69 


65  Cf.  St.  Teresa,  The  Interior  Castle. 

66  Gerson,  Myst.  Theol.  Cons.,  IX,  XLIII. 

67  Cf.  Ribet,  Op.  cit.,  p.  501. 

68  St.  John  of  the  Cross,   The  Living  Flame  of  Love,  translated  by  Lewis, 
London,  1911,  Stanza  II,  1,  IV. 

69  Thorold,  Catholic  Mysticism,  p.  32. 


POETRY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY  23 

Mysticism  of  this  sort  is  of  necessity  of  one  piece  with  Catholic 
doctrine.  He  only  is  a  pure  mystic  whose  knowledge  is  founded 
on  the  true  idea  of  God,  and  upon  the  perfect  expression  of  God's 
revelation.  This  revelation  can  be  truly  known  only  through  the 
Catholic  Church,  and  in  consequence,  however  beautiful,  however 
appealing,  may  be  the  hopes  held  out  by  nature  mystics  for  a 
union  between  God  and  man  through  nature,  they  are  doomed 
to  failure.  Before  the  Incarnation  there  could  be  no  complete 
union  between  God  and  man.  The  God-man  is  the  perfect 
expression  of  mysticism,  and  through  His  death  the  advent  of  true 
mysticism  was  inaugurated.70 


70  Cf.  Saudreau,  La  Voie  qui  mtne  a  Dieu,  Paris,  1904,  Ch.  XXXII. 


24  SOME   EVIDENCES   OF   MYSTICISM   IN   ENGLISH 

CHAPTER  III 


THE   RELATION    BETWEEN    PHILOSOPHY   AND 


POETRY  \ 


"To  make  song  wait  on  life,  not  life  on  song"71  is  the  aim  of 
every  true  poet.  The  greater  the  poet  or  artist  is,  the  nearer  will 
be  his  approach  to  a  true  expression  of  life.  Arnold  says,  "The 
grand  power  of  poetry  is  its  interpretative  power:  by  which  I 
mean  not  a  power  in  drawing  out  in  black  and  white  an  explanation 
of  the  mystery  of  the  universe,  but  the  power  of  so  dealing  with 
things  as  to  awaken  in  us  a  wonderfully  full,  new  and  intimate 
sense  of  them,  and  of  our  relations  with  them.  When  this  sense  is 
awakened  within  us  as  to  objects  without  us,  we  feel  ourselves  to 
be  in  contact  with  the  essential  nature  of  these  objects,  to  be  no 
longer  bewildered  and  oppressed  by  them,  but  to  have  their  secret, 
and  to  be  in  harmony  with  them."72  Poetry  effects  this  inter- 
pretation in  two  ways:  "It  interprets  by  expressing  with  magical 
felicity  the  physiognomy  and  movement  of  the  outward  world, 
and  it  interprets  by  expressing  with  inspired  convictions,  the  ideas 
and  laws  of  the  inward  world  of  man's  moral  and  spiritual  nature. 
In  other  words,  poetry  is  interpretative  both  by  having  natural 
magic  in  it,  and  by  having  moral  profundity."73  If  poets  are 
indeed  seers  and  makers,  "if  what  they  make  has  matter,  has 
weight,  if  what  they  see  is  more  than  shadow,  the  poets  must 
reveal  the  meanings  of  the  life  that  is  about  them.  Poets  cannot 
be  freed  from  the  conditions  which  attach  to  the  intelligence  of 
man  everywhere."74 

In  Life  in  Poetry,  Law  in  Taste  y  Courthope  declares,  "I  take  all 
great  poetry  to  be,  not  so  much  what  Plato  thought  it,  the  utter- 
ance of  individual  genius,  half-inspired,  half -insane,  as  the  enduring 
voice  tof  the  soul  and  conscience  of  man  living  in  society."75  "The 
common  original,  then,  from  which  all  the  arts  draw  is  human  life — 
its  mental  processes,  its  spiritual  movements,  its  outward  acts 
issuing  from  deeper  sources;  in  a  word,  all  that  constitutes  the 
inward  and  essential  activity  of  the  soul."76  The  very  nature  of 


71  Thompson,  Francis,  New  Poems,  Boston,  1897,  "The  Cloud's  Swan  Son,cj," 
p.  104. 

72  Arnold,  Essays  in  Criticism,  London,  1886,  p.  81. 

73  Ibid.,  pp.  110-111. 

74  Dewey,  J.,  "Poetry  and  Philosophy,"  Andover  Review,  XVI,  107. 
76  Courthope,  Life  in  Poetry,  Law  in  Taste,  London,  1913,  pp.  25-26. 

76  Butcher,  Aristotle's  Theory  of  Poetry  and  the  Fine  Arts,  London,   1902, 
p.  124. 


POETRY   OF  THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY  25 

poetical  conception  makes  it  impossible  to  deduce  a  conclusive 
and  fixed  definition  of  poetry.  Mackail  says,  "A  thousand  defini- 
tions have  been  offered,  all  varying  from  one  another,  sometimes 
to  the  extent  of  not  having  a  single  element  in  common.*'77  For  the 
influence  exercised  on  men  by  words  is  greatest  and  most  difficult 
to  estimate  or  to  disentangle  when  words  themselves,  the  art  of 
language,  are  the  subject  matter  as  well  as  the  medium  of  the 
inquiry.78  Since  "all  poetry  begins  and  ends  in  feeling,  to  define 
poetry  satisfactorily  one  must  accordingly  define  the  feeling  out 
of  which  poetry  springs,  and  to  which  it  gives  rise;  but  to  do  this 
is  not  possible;  feeling  is  of  such  a  nature  that  it  cannot  be  defined; 
no  exact  logical  definition  of  it  can  ever  be  made;  poetry,  itself, 
therefore,  can  never  be  satisfactorily  or  finally  defined."79  Yet 
the  feeling  that  is  aroused  by  poetry,  or  the  thought  that  is  con- 
veyed with  an  emotional  setting,  is  aroused  or  conveyed  through 
the  use  of  a  definite  kind  of  material,  and  the  working  out  of 
consistent  processes,  which  are  subject  to  laws*^ 

To  present  intellectual  truths,  freed  from  their  emotional  setting, 
is  the  task  of  science;  science  deals  with  laws  and  principles,  with 
causes,  or  explanations;  with  general  assertions,  with  classes  and 
groups  of  objects.  Poetry  deals  usually  with  individual  persons, 
particular  experiences,  things  or  events.  Emotion  connects  itself 
more  readily  with  concrete  things,  with  particular  persons  or 
events,  than  with  abstract  ideas.  Yet  the  mind  process  of  poetry 
is  of  necessity  an  abstraction,  for  the,  mental  image  is  the  raw 
material  out  of  which  poetry  is  made.80  "The  working  out  of  the 
author's  conceptions  is  spontaneous  and  imaginative;  they  bring 
into  play  the  conscious  intellect,  and  from  the  germinal  hint  or 
motive  build  up  the  masterpiece  of  thought."81 

The  poet,  according  to  Aristotle,82  is  required  to  reproduce, 
not  nature  itself,  but  the  idea  of  nature  existing  in  the  mind, 
"for  nature  in  Aristotle  is  not  the  outward  world  of  created  things: 
it  is  the  creative  force,  the  productive  principle  of  the  universe."83 
Ideal  life  is  subject  to  laws  of  its  own,  and  Horace,  in  his  Ars 
Poetica,  says  very  justly,  "Painters  and  poets  have  always  been 

77  Mackail,  Lectures  on  Poetry,  London,  1911,  p.  6. 

78  Fairchild,  The  Making  of  Poetry,  New  York,  1912,  p.  11. 
7»  Ibid. 

80  Cf.  Fairchild,  Op.  cit.,  p.  21. 

81  Stedman,  Nature  and  Elements  of  Poetry,  New  York,  1892,  p.  48. 

82  Cf.  Poetics,  translated  by  Butcher,  XXV,  2. 

83  Butcher,  Op.  cit.,  p.  116. 


26  SOME   EVIDENCES   OF   MYSTICISM   IN   ENGLISH 

allowed  a  just  freedom  of  conception;  this  is  an  admitted  fact, 
and  the  critic  grants  the  indulgence  that  the  poet  asks."84  All 
that  the  poet  is  required  to  do  is  to  create  a  perfect  illusion,  the 
effect  of  probability,  or  in  other  words,  that  idea  of  unity  which 
is  the  essential  condition  of  organic  life. 

In  every  genuinely  inspired  poetical  conception,  there  are  two 
elements  of  life,  the  one  universal,  the  other  particular.  The 
universal  is  the  idea  of  the  subject,  whatever  it  may  be,  as  it 
exists  in  an  undeveloped  state  in  the  human  mind;  the  individual 
element  is  the  particular  form  and  character  which  is  impressed 
upon  the  subject  by  the  creative  genius  of  the  poet.  The  subject 
matter  exists  not  only  in  the  mind  of  the  poet,  but,  in  embryo,  in 
the  mind  in  general:  the  poet,  then,  must  observe  those  laws  and 
conditions  of  ideal  life  which  prepare  the  imagination  of  the  audi- 
ence for  the  reception  of  his  thought.  "He  must  vitalize  the 
inorganic  matter  already  existing  in  general  conceptions,  so  that 
his  audience  will  conspire  with  him  in  the  act  of  creation."86 

The  poet  must  have  some  authority  for  his  attitude  toward  life. 
Only  when  we  get  at  the  ideas  which  the  poet  applies  to  life,  only 
when  we  know  the  standard  by  which  he  criticises  and  interprets 
life,  are  we  able  to  judge  of  his  power.  If  the  ideas  which  give 
substance  to  poetry  are  only  illusive  make-ups  of  the  poet's  fancy, 
they  can  have  no  claim  on  our  serious  attention,  much  less  a  power 
to  stay  by  and  to  uphold.  If  the  ideas  expressed  are  only  will-o'- 
the-wisps  of  the  poet's  fancy  with  no  foundation  in  truth,  they 
are  of  no  more  value  than  the  idle  fancies  of  a  diseased  brain. 
"Sometimes  imagination  invades  the  sphere  of  understanding, 
and  seems  to  discredit  its  indispensable  work.  Common  sense, 
we  are  allowed  to  infer,  is  a  shallow  affair,  true  insight  changes 
all  that.  When  so  applied,  poetic  activity  is  not  an  unmixed 
good.  It  loosens  our  hold  on  fact,  and  confines  our  intelligence, 
so  that  we  forget  that  intelligence  has  itself  every  prerogative  of 
imagination,  and  has  besides  the  sanction  of  practical  validity."8 
But  just  because  poetry  "flashes  home  to  us  some  of  the  gold  which 
is  at  the  core  and  heart  of  our  everyday  existence,  amid  the  con- 
ventionalities and  make-believes  of  our  ordinary  life"87  it  is  of 
worth.  "Each  poet  is  really  an  explorer  in  the  realm  of  thought 

84  Horace,  Satires  and  Epistles,  edited  by  Morris,  p.  191. 

85  Courthope,  Op.  cit.,  p.  48. 

86  Santayana,  Poetry  and  Religion,  New  York,  1900,  p.  255. 

87  Dewey,  Op.  cit.,  p.  107. 


POETRY   OF  THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY  27 

and  feeling,  not  a  creator.  The  truth  is  fixed  by  some  power 
other  than  himself,  other,  indeed,  than  man."88 

The  object  of  poetry  is  to  bring  to  the  mind  of  the  reader,  the 
realization  of  an  ideal  which  has  either  never  been  in  the  plane  of 
his  activities,  or  has  slipped  down  from  the  edge  of  action,  and  has 
ceased  to  play  any  part  in  his  daily  life.  In  all  periods  of  social 
development,  mental  and  spiritual  needs  occur  which  are  more 
effectively  satisfied  through  poetry,  than  in  any  other  way. 

There  is  a  common  demand  that  the  poet  shall  be  accurate  in 
his  representations — he  is  not  to  reproduce  nature,  but  in  his  work 
he  must  take  cognizance  of  the  human  appreciations  of  nature. 
Philosophy  aims  to  correct  the  partiality  of  particular  points  of 
view  by  means  of  the  standard  of  totality.  The  most  synthetic 
and  metaphysical  minds  are  those  which  possess  the  widest  vision. 
"That  which  the  poet  sees,  the  philosopher  must  define.  That 
which  the  poet  divines,  the  philosopher  must  calculate.  The 
philosopher  must  dig  for  that  which  the  poet  sees  shining  through. 
As  the  poet  transcends  thought  for  the  sake  of  experience,  the 
philosopher  must  transcend  experience  for  the  sake  of  thought/'89 

The  facts  of  life  are  not  solely  the  things  which  we  can  grasp 
and  handle  nor  are  its  utilitarian  pursuits  confined  to  mere  money 
getting,  scientific  cultivation  of  knowledge,  or  other  such  things. 
Away  beyond  these  in  even  practical  value  to  the  world  are  "the 
diligent  conservation  and  cultivation  of  noble  thought  and  senti- 
ment issuing  to  noble  action,  things  which  are  of  the  very  soul 
and  substance  of  poetry,  their  natural  and  true  expression,  and 
efficient  sustenance,"90  but  that  sustenance  must  be  drawn  from 
the  intelligence  of  the  time.  The  poet  draws  his  material  from 
life;  and  the  life  which  is  nearest  the  mind  of  the  poet,  is  life 
translated  into  some  prevailing  theory  of  philosophy.  Centuries 
of  reflection  have  colored  the  material  he  finds  at  hand,  and  he 
must  simply  assimilate  the  results  of  the  labor  of  scientific  men 
and  philosophers. 

"The  poet,  though  influencing  after  times,  is  himself  the  product 
of  influence;  he  molds  the  ideas  he  finds  popular;  he  is  the  child 
of  his  age.  .  .  .  Men's  philosophical  opinions  influence  their 
actions  long  before  they  undertake  to  account  to  themselves  for 


88  Ibid. 

89  Perry,  Ralph  Barton,  "Poetry  and  Philosophy,"  Phil.  Rev.,  XI,  591. 

90  Waters,  "Religious  Element  in  Modern  Poetry,"  Cath.  World,  76,  110. 


28  SOME   EVIDENCES   OF  MYSTICISM    IN   ENGLISH 

holding  them.  Religious  and  philosophical  problems  of  deepest 
import  are  one."91  "Literature  is  so  closely  related  to  the  whole 
movement  of  life  that  every  decided  tendency  which  it  discloses, 
every  dominant  impulse  which  it  reveals,  may  be  studied  with  the 
certainty  that  some  fact  of  human  experience,  some  energy  of 
human  purpose  and  desire,  lies  behind.  .  .  .  Great  books  are 
not  born  in  the  intellect,  but  in  experience,  in  the  contact  of 
mind  and  heart  with  the  great  and  terrible  facts  of  life;  the  great 
conceptions  of  literature  originate  not  in  the  individual  mind, 
but  in  the  soil  of  common  human  hopes,  loves,  fears,  aspirations, 
and  sufferings."92 

In  our  own  time  the  objective  manner  of  the  earlier  poets  has 
given  way  to  a  subjectivism  significant  of  a  deepening  self-con- 
sciousness. "No  age  has  ever  studied  itself  with  so  eager  a 
curiosity  as  our  own.  This  introspection  has  impressed  itself 
very  strongly  upon  all  contemporary  art;  it  has  raised  up  the 
literature  of  locality:  the  analytical  novel;  it  has  turned  the 
rivulet  of  our  poetry  almost  entirely  into  the  lyric  channel,  for 
the  lyric  is  of  all  poetry  the  most  subjective.  It  is  well  for  the 
poet  to  look  into  his  heart  and  write,  well  for  him  to  examine  the 
precise  quality  of  his  intent  and  the  technical  resources  of  his  craft. 
The  danger  is  that  through  looking  too  precisely,  he  be  smitten 
with  the  paralysis  of  Hamlet.  There  is  danger  that  he  may  lose 
the  naked  vision  of  that  Beauty,  whom  we  know  by  her  earlier 
name  of  Truth."93  To  avoid  this  snare,  poetry  must  be  founded 
on  a  true  philosophy  of  life,  and  "a  noble  religion,  which  will  bear 
by  its  immaterial  truths,  our  intellect,  conscience,  emotions, 
imagination,  and  spirit,  beyond  this  world;  and  yet,  by  these  very 
truths,  set  us  into  the  keenest  activity  in  the  world  for  the  bettering 
of  the  world."94 


91  Azarias,  Brother,  Philosophy  of  Literature,  Philadelphia,  1879,  p.  48. 

92  Mabie,  Essays  in  Literary  Interpretation,  New  York,  1900,  p.  4. 

93  Hooker,  Brian,  "Introspection  and  Some  Recent  Poetry,"  Forum,  XXXIX, 
522. 

94  Brooke,  S.  A.,  Religion  in  Literature,  New  York,  1901,  p.  30. 


POETRY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY  29 


CHAPTER  IV 

WORDSWORTH:  GOD  SOUGHT  THROUGH  NATURE 

Mysticism  is  essentially,  a  union  with  God:  that  it  is  much 
more  need  not  concern  us  now.  There  are,  however,  many  kinds 
of  union  with  God.  Firs£,  there  is  the  substantial  union  of 
Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost,  a  union  ineffable  and  incommunica- 
ble, into  which  the  Three  alone  can  enter.  Secondly,  there  is  the 
hypostatic  or  personal  union  of  a  created  nature  with  a  divine, 
a  privilege  which  belongs  to  the  adorable  Humanity  of  Jesus 
Christ  alone.  Thirdly,  there  is  the  causal  union  which  exists 
between  the  Creator  and  all  creatures,  by  virtue  of  their  origin, 
and  their  dependence  on  Him.  Fourthly,  there  is  an  intellectual 
and  affective  union  with  God,  which  may  be  either  natural  or 
supernatural. 

It  is  possible  that  the  existence  of  a  Supreme  Being,  worthy 
of  worship  and  love,  may  be  discerned  by  the  human  mind  through 
a  purely  natural  knowledge  of  the  universe,  and  from  this  purely 
natural  knowledge  may  spring  a  purely  natural  love.  If  we 
believe  that  God  has  revealed  Himself  otherwise  than  through 
nature,  another  kind  of  knowledge  and  love  is  obtainable — the 
knowledge  of  faith,  and  the  love  of  charity:  this  supernatural 
intellectual  and  affective  union  with  God  every  soul  in  a  state  of 
grace  possesses.95  When  this  union  is  cultivated,  and  maintained 
at  its  highest  plane,  when  every  element  in  it  acts  in  accordance 
with  reason,  and  a  will  founded  on  God,  we  have,  not  the  mystical 
state,  indeed,  but  its  forerunner,  contemplation.96  If  God  is 
pleased  to  lead  the  soul  thus  prepared  into  His  immediate  pres- 
ence, and  give  her  an  "experimental"  knowledge  of  Himself,  we 
have  true  mysticism.  Reserving  until  later  all  discussion  as  to 
what  evidences  of  this  type  of  mysticism  modern  English  poetry 
affords,  we  shall  here  concern  ourselves  with  that  intellectual  and 
affective  union  brought  about  by  a  contemplation  of  natural 
objects,  and  with  the  author  who  has  given  most  pronounced 
expression  to  the  belief  that  through  Nature  man  may  come  into 
immediate  contact  with  the  Divine. 


96  Cf.  Sharpe,  Op.  ciL,  pp.  63^64. 

96  Cf.  Lejeune,  An  Introduction  to  the  Mystical-  Life,  translated  by  L«vett, 
London,  1915,  p.  285,  ff. 


30  SOME   EVIDENCES   OF  MYSTICISM   IN   ENGLISH 

No  one  at  all  familiar  with  the  poetry  of  Wordsworth  will  deny 
that  he  possessed  a  sort  of  moral  sensitiveness,  closely  akin  to  the 
mystical  consciousness,  which  very  early  affected  his  imaginative 
life,  and  impelled  him  to  give  an  ethical  interpretation  to  certain 
aspects  of  nature,  and  to  claim  for  natural  beauty  an  influence 
above  and  beyond  the  aesthetic.97  His  poetry  is,  in  a  very  large 
measure,  an  account  of  his  own  inner  experiences;  experiences, 
which,  originally  sense  perceptions,  were  synthesized  through 
recollection,  and  given  a  moral  interpretation. 

Physical  environment  has  much  to  do  with  the  mental  and 
spiritual  development  of  every  individual.  Wordsworth  was  born 
and  reared  in  the  Lake  country,98  a  region  noted  for  its  natural 
beauty:  much  of  his  time,  through  childhood  and  youth,  up  to 
mature  manhood,  was  spent  in  the  presence  of  picturesque  moun- 
tains and  sheltered  dales,  of  wild  fells,  and  rapid  waterfalls.  The 
religious  love  and  regard  which  he  had  for  nature  are  traced  by 
him  to  these  early  associations: 

"Fair  seed-time  had  my  soul,  and  I  grew  up, 
Fostered  alike  by  beauty  and  by  fear."99 

It  wras  here,  the  Derwent,  "fairest  of  all  rivers"  "loved  to  blend 
his  murmurs"  with  his  nurse's  song,  and  "sent  a  voice 

That  flowed"  along  his  dreams.100 

In  the  biographical  poem,  "The  Prelude,"  which  Legouis  declares 
less  a  narrative  than  a  study  of  origins,  less  the  history  of  a  man 
than  the  philosophy  of  a  mind,101  he  gives  an  account  of  youthful, 
solitary  adventures,  wherein  he  feels  himself  influenced  by  strange 
and  obscure  agencies  which  have  a  direct  and  decisive  effect  on 
his  spiritual  and  imaginative  life.  One  experience  after  another 
seems  to  bear  out  the  sense  of  something  back  of  reality  at  once 
awful  and  incomprehensible. 

When  the  boy,  woodcock  catching  with  his  companions  by 
moonlight,  is  tempted  to  take  more  than  his  share  of  the  spoils, 
he  hears  among  the  solitary  hills,  "low  breathings"  coming  after 
him, 

97  Cf.  Sneath,  E.  H.,  Wordsworth,  Poet  of  Nature  and  Poet  of  Man,  Boston, 
1912,  p.  3. 

98  Cf.  Myers,  Life  of  Wordsworth,  New  York,  1887. 

99  The  Prelude,  Bk.  I,  11,  301-303. 

100  Ibid.,  11,  271-274. 

101  Legouis,  E.  H.,  The  Early  Life  of  William  Wordsworth,  translated  Uy 
J.  W.  Matthews,  London,  1897,  p.  14. 


POETRY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY  31 

"and  sounds 

Of  indistinguishable  motion,  steps 
Almost  as  silent  as  the  turf  they  trod:"102 

the  huge  black  peak  seems  to  stride  after  him,  with  "measured 
motion  like  a  living  thing;"  his  mind 

"Worked  with  a  dim  and  undetermined  sense 
Of  unknown  modes  of  being."103 

Nature  seemed  full  of  huge  and  mighty  forms,  that  did  not  live 
like  men:  dim,  unseen  presences  which  haunted  his  boyish  sports, 
and  "impressed  upon  all  forms  the  character  of  danger  and 
desire."104 

There  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  light  in  which  Wordsworth 
himself  views  these  experiences.  He  holds  that  for  him,  Nature 
was  a  moral  teacher,  the  moulder  of  his  conscience  during  those 
early  years:  that  she  enforced  her  lessons  through  pain  and  fear, 
and  through  the  inspiration  of  high  and  enduring  things.105 
However  greatly  he  may  have  exaggerated  in  later  years  the 
impressions  then  made  upon  him,  we  see  here  the  crude  beginnings 
of  that  spiritual  apprehension  of  Nature  which  was  to  form  more 
and  more  an  article  of  his  poetic  and  philosophical  creed.106  He 
came  to  feel  that  he  must 

"tread  on  shadowy  ground,  must  sink 
Deep, — and  aloft  ascending,  breathe  in  worlds, 
To  which  the  heaven  of  heavens  is  but  a  veil."107 

In  all  this  it  is  evident  that  Wordsworth,  in  common  with  other 
mystics,  had  a  dim  consciousness  of  some  vast  power,  over- 
shadowing this  sense-world  of  ours,  and  making  itself  felt  in  the 
soul.108  But  he  believed  this  power  to  be,  not  so  much  behind 
Nature,  as  in  it.  He  held  that  through  the  contemplation  of 
Nature  man  "may  see  into  the  Me  of  things"109  as  far,  perhaps, 
as  beatific  vision  or  prophetic  rapture  can  attain.  He  would 
make  Nature  a  revealing  agency  of  the  transcendental  world,  like 


102  The  Prelude,  Bk.  I,  11,  323-325. 

103  Ibid.,  1.  392-393, 

104  Ibid.,  1,  471-472. 

105  Ibid.,  1,  409. 

106  Cf.  Clough,  Arthur,  Literary  Remains,  London,  1869,  Vol.  I,  p.  310. 

107  The  Excursion,  Preface. 

108  Cf.   Veitch,    The    Theism   of  Wordsworth.     Transactions   of  Wordsworth 
Society,  No.  8,  p.  24. 

109  Tintern  Abbey,  1,  51. 


32  SOME   EVIDENCES   OF   MYSTICISM   IN   ENGLISH 

love  or  prayer.110  The  question  arises,  can  the  world  of  life,  and 
order,  and  beauty,  by  which  we  are  surrounded,  however  studied, 
however  enjoyed,  lead  us  back  to  that  knowledge  and  love  of  God 
which  we  have  lost  through  sin? 

That  Christianity  is  a  supernatural  system,  propounding  spirit- 
ual aids  without  which  the  human  race  can  have  no  hope  of 
regeneration,  Wordsworth  nowhere  denies,  but  he  nullifies  this 
truth  by  asserting  that  man  can  be  restored  to  a  state  of  primitive 
purity  by  a  process  purely  natural,  and  independent  of  any  superior 
agency. 

"Paradise  and  groves 

Elysian,  Fortunate  Fields — like  those  of  old 
Sought  in  the  Atlantic  main:  why  should  they  be 
A  history  only  of  departed  things, 
Or  a  mere  fiction  of  what  never  was? 
For  the  discerning  intellect  of  man 
When  wedded  to  this  goodly  universe 
In  love  and  holy  passion,  shall  find  these 
A  simple  produce  of  the  common  day."111 

In  that  portion  of  Wordsworth's  poetry  which  represents  his 
highest  genius,  the  portion  that  is  most  apt  to  endure  for  all 
time,  "the  capacities  of  the  soul,  the  exhaustless  sympathies  of 
nature,  are  held  up  for  contemplation,  positively  declared,  per- 
suasively reasoned,  skilfully  illustrated  with  the  finest  trophies  of 
imaginative  power.  There  is  no  shrinking  from  conclusions,  no 
extenuation  of  meaning,  but  all  that  is  implied  in  the  "high  argu- 
ment" of  the  perfect  sufficiency  of  nature  to  the  human  mind,  finds 
emphatic  utterance."112  He  asserts  the  power  of  the  soul  to 
regenerate  herself: 

"Within  the  soul  a  faculty  abides 
That  with  interpositions  which  would  hide 
And  darken,  so  can  deal,  that  they  become 
Contingencies  of  pomp :  and  seem  to  exalt 
Her  native  brightness."113 


110  Cf.  Myers,  F.  W.  H.,  Wordsworth,  New  York,  1887,  p.  130. 

111  The  Excursion,  Preface,  11,  47-55. 

112  Art.  "Wordsworth  as  a  Religious  Teacher,"  Christian  Review,  16,  434. 

113  The  Excursion,  Bk.  IV.  11,  1058-1062. 


POETRY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY  33 

These  interpositions  came  from  Nature — 

"The  whispering  air 

Sends  inspiration  from  the  shadowy  heights 
And  blind  recesses  of  the  caverned  rocks. 
The  little  rills,  and  waters  numberless 
Inaudible  to  daylight,  blend  their  notes 
With  the  loud  streams."114 

Nature  was  to  Wordsworth 

"The  nurse,  the  guide,  the  guardian  of  my  heart;'*115  he  com- 
mends his  sister  to  a  like  guardianship,  as  a  sovereign  remedy 
against  "all  solitude,  or  fear,  or  pain,  or  grief."116  His  highest 
aspiration  for  the  Cumberland  beggar  is  that  he  may  live  and  die 
in  the  eyes  of  nature;  the  most  telling  incident  he  can  summon  to 
express  the  degradation  of  Peter  Bell  is  that  the  tiny  flower  by 
the  river's  brim  was  nothing  more  to  him  than  a  yellow  primrose. 

In  all  this  Wordsworth  was  influenced,  whether  he  was  aware 
of  it  or  not,  by  Rousseau  and  the  Zeit-Geist.117  "A  return  to 
Nature"  was  the  gospel  of  the  day.  The  very  atmosphere  was 
charged  with  it,  and  Wordsworth  was  all  the  more  susceptible 
to  its  influence  because  it  harmonized  with  his  predispositions  and 
likings. 

Emile  Legouis,  a  keen  and  penetrating  critic  of  the  poet,  says: 
"Wordsworth's  surprise  and  resentment  would  surely  have  been 
provoked  had  he  been  told  that,  at  half  a  century's  distance,  and 
from  an  European  point  of  view,  his  work  would  seem,  on  the 
whole,  though  with  several  omissions  and  additions,  to  be  a 
continuation  of  the  movement  initiated  by  Rousseau.  It  is, 
nevertheless,  certain  that  it  might  be  described  as  an  English 
variety  of  Rousseau's  well  known  tenets:  he  has  the  same  semi- 
mystical  faith  in  the  goodness  of  nature  as  well  as  in  the  excellence 
of  the  child:  his  ideas  on  education  are  almost  identical;  there  are 
apparent  a  similar  diffidence  in  respect  of  the  merely  intellectual 
processes  in  the  mind,  and  an  equal  trust  in  the  good  that  may  ac- 
crue to  man  from  the  cultivation  of  his  senses  and  his  feelings. 
.  .  .  For  this  reason  Wordsworth  must  be  placed  by  the  general 
historian  among  the  numerous  "sons  of  Rousseau"  who  form  the 
main  battalion  of  romanticism."118 

»«  Ibid.,  11,  1170-1176. 

115  Tintern  Abbey,  1,  110. 

116  Ibid.,  1,  144. 

117  Cf.  Caird,  Edward,  Essays  on  Literature  and  Philosophy,  Glasgow,  1892, 
pp.  160-162. 

118  Cambridge  History  of  English  Literature,  Vol.  XI,  p.  103. 


34  SOME   EVIDENCES   OF  MSYTICISM   IN   ENGLISH 

With  Wordsworth  this  passion  for  Nature  seemed  to  develop 
almost  into  a  religion :  he  was  a  reverent  worshipper  at  her  shrine, 
and  the  overpowering  vision  which  he  there  beheld  was  for  him 
a  tremendous  reality,  and  he  felt  himself  morally  commissioned 
to  speak  that  vision  through  his  art.  He  was  a  "dedicated 
spirit."119 

"I,  long  before  the  blissful  hour  arrives, 
Would  chant,  in  lonely  peace,  the  spousal  verse 
Of  this  great  consummation;  and,  by  words 
Which  speak  of  nothing  more  than  what  we  are, 
Would  I  arouse  the  sensual  from  their  sleep 
Of  death,  and  win  the  vacant  and  the  vain 
To  noble  raptures;"120 

Natural  beauty  has  had  a  marked  influence  on  nearly  all  true 
mystics.  St.  Bernard,  masterful  and  rigid  ascetic  as  he  was, 
writing  to  a  young  friend,  urging  him  to  leave  the  world  and  enter 
a  monastery,  said:  "Experto  crede:  aliquid  amplius  inveneris  in 
silvis  quam  in  libris;  ligna  et  lapides  docebunt  te  quod  a  magistro 
audire  non  possis."121  "Thou  wilt  find  something  more  in  forests 
than  in  books:  trees  and  rocks  will  teach  thee  what  thou  canst 
not  learn  from  masters;"  but  here  St.  Bernard  was  simply  making 
the  point  that  the  freer  a  life  is  from  the  complex  toils  of  society, 
the  more  easily  the  soul  rises  to  God  He  avows  that  he,  himself, 
gained  his  understanding  of  the  Scriptures  by  prayer  and  medita- 
tion "in  silvis  et  in  agris,"122  when  he  had  no  masters  except  the 
oaks  and  beeches,  yet  we  note  that  the  subject  of  his  meditation 
was  not  the  oaks  and  beeches,  but  the  Scriptures. 

In  the  case  of  the  true  mystic  it  is  the  appreciation  of  unseen 
forces  within  and  behind  the  material  world  that  leads  to  a  love 
of  nature,  and  the  transition  is  from  the  supernatural  to  the 
natural.  Man  cannot  get  a  religion  out  of  Nature,  nor  can  she 
be  to  him  a  source  of  inspiration,  unless  he  come  to  the  spectacle 
of  her  with  the  thought  of  God  already  in  his  heart.  The  beauty 
we  see  in  earth  and  sky  is  not  shed  over  it  by  us,  nor  projected 
from  our  souls.  "The  ideal  is  not  in  the  soul,  it  is  in  the  soul's 
Maker,"123  with  whom  the  soul  is  created  to  commune,  and  we 


119  The  Prelude,  IV,  1,  337. 

120  The  Excursion,  Preface,  11,  56-62. 

121  Migne,  Patrologia  Lalina,  Vol.  CLXXXII,  p.  242. 

122  Ibid. 

123  Brownson,  Quarterly  Review,  12,  537. 


POETRY   OF  THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY  35 

are  forced  to  ask  ourselves  if  there  is  not  a  better  way  of  reaching 
that  communion  than  the  one  pointed  out  by  the  great  poet. 
We  do  not  question  the  fact  that  there  is  a  profound  connection 
between  the  world  around  us,  and  the  world  within  us,  but  we 
believe  a  nature  creed  such  as  advanced  by  Wordsworth  can  lead 
but  to  vague  and  shadowy  conclusions,  and  to  a  distant  and 
bewildering  view  of  God. 

He  sought,  in  common  with  other  writers  of  his  time,  to  lead  men 
from  the  old  scholastic  formulae  to  an  intuition  of  an  immanent 
God,  and  the  result  is  a  misty  notion  of  an  all-pervading  Spirit, 
which  neither  strengthens  to  endure,  nor  rouses  to  action.  In  his 
poetry  we  miss  the  clear  sense  of  the  Personality  of  God.  His 
theories  may  satisfy  "a  herdsman  on  a  lonely  mountain  top,"124 
but  will  they  convince  men  living  in  the  midst  of  great  groaning 
cities?  Deplore  the  fact  as  we  may,  men  do  so  live,  and  they  are 
the  very  ones  whom  spiritual  starvation  threatens  most.  Are 
they  to  be  debarred  from  attaining  moral  and  religious  excellence 
because  their  surroundings  afford  no  food  for  the  imagination? 

Wordsworth  held  that  through  communion  with  Nature  he 
regained  his  moral  poise  after  the  shock  of  the  French  Revolution,126 
a  crisis  in  his  life  which  has  been  compared  to  the  "dark  night  of 
the  soul"  experienced  by  religious  mystics.  It  may  well  be  that 
the  sight  of  nature  in  her  calmness  and  beauty  soothed  the  imag- 
ination of  Wordsworth:  the  question  is,  had  the  "grisly  drama" 
been  enacted  not  in  imagination,  but  in  real  life,  had  Wordsworth 
been  an  actor  and  not  a  spectator  in  that  drama,  would  the  power 
he  ascribed  to  nature  have  been  sufficient  to  support  the  strain. 
Had  he  been,  not  afar  off,  but  in  the  midst  of  that  carnival  of 
fever  and  passion,  would  the  considerations  he  advances  have 
cooled  that  fever  and  held  in  check  those  passions?  We  doubt  it. 
There  are  moral  evils  of  too  deep  and  obstinate  a  character  to 
yield  to  the  remedy  he  proposes.  The  perplexed,  the  darkened, 
the  diseased  mind  craves  something  more  than  the  beauteous 
aspects  of  nature,  draw  deeply  as  it  may  from  her  store.  It  needs 
the  sight  of  the  dying  Savior,  and  the  sense  of  His  abiding  Presence. 


124  The  Excursion,  Bk.  I,  1,  219. 

i»  Cf.    The    Prelude,   XII.     Raleigh,  Life   of  Wordtworth,   London,    1903, 
p.  4,  5. 


36  SOME   EVIDENCES   OF   MYSTICISM   IN   ENGLISH 

CHAPTER  V 

ROSSETTi:  GOD  SOUGHT  THROUGH  BEAUTY 

The  supremacy  of  science,  and  the  advance  of  democracy,  are 
usually  considered  the  two  dominant  forces  in  modern  English 
We  and  thought.  The  ideas  which  had  begun  to  shape  them- 
selves early  in  the  century,  were  clearly  defined  by  1830.  The 
new  political  and  social  movements  developed  rapidly,  but  by  the 
middle  of  the  century,  they  were  compelled  to  recede  before  the 
storm  of  historical  criticism  and  scientific  exposition  which  their 
wide-spread  inception  and  propagation  had  aroused.126 

Prominent  among  the  minds  of  more  distinctly  spiritual  grain, 
whom  this  endless  pursuit  of  scientific  and  political  ideals  had 
repelled,  stands  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti.127  As  Keats  in  the 
earlier  part  of  the  century  held  aloof  from  the  revolutionary 
struggles  which  so  powerfully  affected  Byron  and  Shelley,  so  now 
Rossetti,  and  with  him  that  small  band  of  enthusiasts  to  be  known 
later  as  the  Pre-Raphaelites,  cared  not  a  whit  for  the  endless 
discussion  of  the  correlation  of  physical  forces,  natural  selection, 
the  infallibility  of  the  Bible,  and  wholly  unaffected  by  the  expan- 
sion of  these  scientific  and  philosophical  ideas,  sought  to  "get 
away  from  this  vain  disquiet  to  quiet,  from  futile  argument  to 
fruitful  meditation,  from  materialism  to  the  spiritual,  from  this 
ugly  world  to  a  beautiful  one,  from  theological  squabbles  to  re- 
ligious symbols,  from  fighting  sects  to  the  invisible  Church,  from 
Science  and  its  quarrels  to  the  great  creations  of  imagination, 
from  convention  to  truth  in  Art,  from  imitation  of  dead  forms  of 
Art  to  Nature  herself.  .  .  .  Let  us  seek  the  realm  of  pure  faith, 
or  if  we  do  not  care  to  believe,  to  that  pure  image  of  beauty  which 
we  see  once  more  rising  from  the  Sea  of  Time."128 

Mr.  Arthur  Benson,  in  his  Life  of  Rossetti  points  out  two  pre- 
dominating strains  in  nineteenth  century  poetry:  one,  the  strong 
impulse  to  find  a  poetical  solution  for  the  problem  lying  behind 
nature  and  life;  the  other,  an  attempt  to  treat  of  human  relations 

126  Cf.  Saintsbury,  George,   The  Later    Nineteenth  Century,  London,   1907, 
pp.  352-396. 

127  Cf.  Rossetti,  William,  in   Preface  to   Works  of  Dante  Gabriel  Rossitti, 
London,  1890,  p.  XXI. 

128  Brooke,    Stopford    A.,  Four  Victorian    Poets:   Clough,  Arnold,   Rossttti, 
Morris,  London,  1908,  p.  15. 


POETRY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY  37 

in  their  most  direct  form.  With  neither  of  these  had  Rossetti 
any  close  affinity.  He  belonged  rather  to  the  medieval  school 
of  Italian  poetry,  and  sought  inspiration  in  the  romance  and 
mysticism  of  that  period.129  "He  was  a  Latin,  and  he  made  it 
his  special  task  to  interpret  to  modern  Protestant  England  what- 
ever struck  him  as  most  spiritually  intense  and  characteristic  in 
the  Latin  Catholic  Middle  Age."130 

This  was  not  strange.  His  mother  was  half-Italian:  his  father 
was  a  native  of  the  kingdom  of  Naples,  and  a  well  known  com- 
mentator and  exponent  of  Dante.  From  his  childhood  he  had 
been  trained  to  love  the  great  poet,  and  had  been  given  his  name 
at  the  baptismal  font.131  In  the  beautiful  sonnet,  "Dantis 
Tenebrae,"  written  in  memory  of  his  father,  he  says, 

"And  didst  thou  know,  indeed,  when  at  the  font, 
Together  with  thy  name  thou  gav'st  me  his, 
That  also  on  thy  son  must  Beatrice 
Decline  her  eyes  according  to  her  wont, 
Accepting  me  to  be  of  those  that  haunt 
The  vale  of  magical  dark  mysteries, 
Where  to  the  hills  her  poet's  foot-track  lies, 
And  wisdom's  living  fountain  to  his  chaunt 
Trembles  in  music."132 

The  poet  believed  that  he  had  found  in  the  Vita  Nuova  a  sympa- 
thetic statement  of  his  own  moods,  and  he  tells  us, 

' 'I,  long  bound  within  the  threefold  charm 
Of  Dante's  love  sublimed  to  heavenly  mood, 
Had  marvelled;  touching  his  Beatitude, 
How  grew  such  presence  from  man's  shameful  scorn. 
At  length  within  this  book  I  found  portrayed 
Newborn  that  Paradisal  Love  of  his, 
And  simple  like  a  child;  with  whose  clear  aid 
I  understood.     To  such  a  child  as  this, 
Christ,  charging  well  his  chosen  ones,  forbade 
Offence:  "for  lo!  of  such  my  kingdom  is."133 

That  for  him  Beatrice  declined  her  eyes  according  to  her  wont, 
his  poetry  affords  sufficient  proof.  His  earlier  productions  show 

129  Cf.  Op.  cit.,  p.  78-79. 

130  Beers,   A    History  of  English   Romanticism  in  the    Nineteenth  Century, 
New  York.  1899,  p.  298. 

131  Cf .  Rossetti,  William  M.,  in  Preface  to  Poetical  Works  of  Dante  Gabriel 
Rossetti,  London,  1905,  pp.  7,  8. 

132  Rossetti,  Dante  Gabriel,  Complete  Poetical  Work*,  ]'»<.st<m,  1!)03,  p.  291. 

133  Ibid.,  p.  290. 


38  SOMR   EVIDENCES   OF   MYSTICISM   IN   ENGLISH 

a  curious  blending  of  human  devotion  and  religious  mysticism. 
The  "Blessed  Damosel"  is  of  this  type.  It  is  a  story  of  the  inter- 
penetration  of  time  and  eternity,  of  earthly  and  heavenly  love. 
A  soul,  to  whom  it  seemed 

".    .    .   she  scarce  had  been  a  day 
One  of  God's  choristers; 
The  wonder  was  not  yet  quite  gone 
From  that  still  look  of  hers, 
Albeit,  to  them  she  left,  her  day 
Had  counted  as  ten  years,"134 

leans  over  the  parapet  of  heaven  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  her  earthly 
lover.  Rossetti  paints  the  radiant  vision  in  firm,  clear  outline, 
with  a  definiteness  of  imagery  singularly  striking  in  a  theme  so 
profoundly  mystical.  The  golden  bar,  the  maiden  with  stars 
in  her  hair  and  lilies  in  her  hand,  are  drawn  with  the  calm  un- 
hesitating realism  of  a  medieval  painter.  She  speaks  of  what  life 
will  be  in  heaven  when  they  are  reunited,  and  these  human  touches 
in  the  midst  of  eternity  create  a  feeling  of  nearness  and  vastness 
which  give  to  the  poem  an  incredible  charm.  There  is  a  gentle 
faith  in  the  far-off  meeting,  yet  the  soul  on  earth  is  troubled,  for 

"shall  God  lift 
To  endless  unity 

The  soul  whose  likeness  with  thy  soul 
Was  but  its  love  for  thee?"135 

To  those  who  would  object  that  the  blessed  soul  is  pictured 
as  too  much  absorbed  in  earthly  love,  we  can  but  reply  in  the 
words  of  a  critic,  whose  ability  to  read  the  mind  of  the  poet  beneath 
the  printed  page,  was  a  source  of  keen  satisfaction  to  Rossetti 
himself:136  "The  heaven  of  theology  is  an  assemblage  of  paradoxes 
which  faith  alone  can  knit  together;  and  in  its  entirety,  wholly 
without  the  realm  of  art.  In  this  poem  we  have  one  aspect 
of  the  life  of  the  blessed  presented  to  us  most  vividly  in  the  only 
colors  an  artist's  pencil  can  command — those  of  earthly  love."137 

That  Rossetti  believed  love  begun  on  earth  would  be  perfected 
in  heaven,  we  gather  from  "The  Portrait:" 


134  Ibid.,  pp.  1,  2. 

135  Ibid.,  p.  5. 

136  Rossetti,  William,  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti,  as  Designer  and  Writer,  London, 
1899,  p.  154. 

137  Earle,  J.  C.,  Catholic  World,  XIV,  266,  Art.  "Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti." 


POETRY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY  39 

"Even  so,  where  Heaven  holds  breath  and  hears, 
The  beating  heart  of  Love's  own  breast, — 
Where  round  the  secret  of  all  spheres 
All  angels  lay  their  wings  to  rest, — 
How  shall  my  soul  stand  rapt  and  awed, 
When,  by  the  new  birth  borne  abroad 
Throughout  the  music  of  the  suns, 
It  enters  in  her  soul  at  once 
And  knows  the  silence  there  for  God. 

Here  with  her  face  doth  memory  sit 
Meanwhile,  and  wait  the  day's  decline, 
Till  other  eyes  shall  look  from  it, 
Eyes  of  the  spirit's  Palestine, 
Even  than  the  old  gaze  tenderer : 
While  hopes  and  aims  long  lost  with  her 
Stand  round  her  image  side  by  side, 
Like  tombs  of  pilgrims  that  have  died 
About  the  Holy  Sepulchre."138 

He  made  no  pretense  of  being  either  a  moral  teacher,  or  an 
inspirer  of  noble  deeds :  his  mission  was  to  proclaim  the  supremacy 
of  beauty  and  love.  He  sought  to  express  the  intricate  and  com- 
plex development  of  human  passion,  its  outward  manifestation 
in  beauty  of  form  and  feature,  whose  material  loveliness  he  believed 
to  be  the  voice  of  some  spirit  speaking  to  his  soul.  In  the  power 
of  this  spirit  he  believed  with  fervent  faith,  but  he  made  no 
attempt  to  square  that  faith  with  the  grave  problems  of  life  and 
conduct  which  have  confronted  men  in  all  ages.  In  some  of  his 
poems,  it  is  true,  he  does  paint  the  degradation  and  breakage  which 
result  from  preferring  low  loves  to  high  ones,  and  shows  that  he 
has  the  power  to  look  beyond  appearances  to  the  great  unity  of 
purpose  that  underlies  all  things;  to  see  beneath  the  tragedy  of 
thwarted  human  endeavor,  the  workings  of  a  law  of  retributive 
justice.  Such  a  poem  is  "Jenny,"  wherein  he  contrasts  the 
outcast  at  his  feet,  with  his  cousin,  just  such  a  girl, 

"And  fond  of  dress,  and  change,  and  praise, 
So  mere  a  woman  in  her  ways,"1 

yet  guarded  in  the  atmosphere  of  home,  and  reflects, 

138  Rossetti,  Dante  Gabriel,  Complete  Poems,  ed.  cit.f  "The  House  of  Life," 
p.  132. 

™  Ibid.,  p.  110. 


40  SOME   EVIDENCES   OF  MYSTICISM   IN   ENGLISH 

"So  pure — so  fallen!  how  dare  to  think 

Of  the  first  common,  kindred  link? 

Yet,  Jenny,  till  the  world  shall  burn 

It  seems  that  all  things  take  their  turn, 

And  who  shall  say  but  this  fair  tree 

May  need,  in  changes  that  may  be 

Your  children's  children's  charity? 

Scorned  then,  no  doubt,  as  you  are  scorn'd! 

Shall  no  man  hold  his  pride  forewarn'd 

Till  in  the  end,  the  Day  of  Days, 

At  Judgment,  one  of  his  own  race, 

As  frail  and  lost  as  you,  shall  rise — 

His  daughter,  with  his  mother's  eyes?"140 

Since  medieval  times  were  above  all  else  Catholic  times,  it 
was  quite  impossible  that  an  artist  intensely  alive  to  the  beauty 
of  those  ages  of  faith,  and  seeking  to  imitate  the  spiritual  tone 
of  their  art,  would  fail  to  be  influenced  by  their  strong  religious 
feeling,  and  by  their  child-like  devotion  to  the  Mother  of  God. 
Rossetti's  first  painting,  for  he  was  painter  as  well  as  poet,  had 
for  subject  the  "Girlhood  of  the  Virgin  Mary,"  U1  and  his  second, 
the  "Annunciation."  In  his  poem  "Ave"  he  has  shown  a  ten- 
derly sensitive  comprehension  of  the  mysteries  of  our  Lady's  life. 
"  Mother  of  fair  delight, 

Thou  handmaid  perfect  in  God's  sight, 

Now  sitting  fourth  beside  the  Three, 

Thyself  a  woman  Trinity. 

Ah!  knew'st  thou  of  the  end,  when  first 
That  Babe  was  on  thy  bosom  nursed? 
Or  when  he  tottered  round  thy  knee, 
Did  thy  great  sorrow  dawn  on  thee? 

Nay,  but  I  think  the  whisper  crept 

Like  growth  through  childhood, 

Work  and  play, 

Things  common  to  the  course  of  day 

Awed  thee  with  meanings  unfulfilled 

And  all  through  girlhood,  something  still'd 

Thy  senses  like  the  birth  of  light, 

When  thou  hast  trimmed  thy  lamp  at  night. 

O  Mary  Mother!  be  not  loth 

To  listen — thou  whom  the  stars  clothe. 

Into  our  shadow  bend  thy  face, 
Bowing  thee  from  the  secret  place, 
O  Mary  Virgin,  full  of  grace!"142 

140  Ibid.,  p.  119. 

141  Rossetti,  William  Michael,  Op.  cit.,  pp.  8-10. 

142  Rossetti,  Dante  Gabriel,  Complete  Poems,  ed.  cit.,  p.  41,  ff. 


POETRY   OF  THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY  41 

Another  poem  that  illustrates  how  near  Rossetti  was  to  the 
mysticism  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  sympathy  and  imagination, 
though  remote  from  it  in  conviction  and  practice,  is  the  sonnet 
entitled  "Mary  Magdalene."  This  was  written  for  one  of  his 
own  pictures,  and  is  best  understood  in  the  light  of  that  picture. 
The  beautiful  Syrian  girl,  who  makes  her  way,  rose-crowned  and 
laughing,  in  the  midst  of  a  gay  procession,  has  been  attracted  by 
the  glance  of  the  Savior,  as  he  sits  in  the  house  of  Simon.  Un- 
mindful of  the  scorning  faces  around  her,  she  breaks  away  from 
her  persuasive  lover,  won  by  the  look  of  sorrow  and  yearning  in 
Christ's  eyes : 

"Oh!  loose  me!  See'st  thou  not  my  Bridegroom's  face, 
That  draws  me  to  Him!  for  His  feet  my  kiss, 
My  hair,  my  tears  He  craves  today : — and  oh 
What  words  can  tell  what  other  day  and  place 
Shall  see  me  clasp  those  blood-stained  feet  of  His."143 

"  World's  Worth  "  which  was  first  published  in  The  Germ  under  the 
title  "  Father  Hilary  "  has  been  styled,  "  a  delicate  and  subtle  study  , 
of  religious  passion,  full  of  special  grace  and  spiritual  charm."144 
The  poem  pictures  a  monk,  with  brain  grown  void  and  thin  through 
excessive  introspection,  who,  to  free  himself  from  his  burden, 
seeks  contact  with  the  outer  world,  only  to  find  new  pain.  At  last, 

"He  stood  within  the  mystery, 
Girding  God's  blessed  Eucharist: 
The  organ  and  the  chant  had  ceased. 
The  last  words  paused  against  his  ear 
Said  from  the  Altar:  drawn  round  him 
The  gathering  rest  was  dumb  and  dim. 
And  now  the  sacring-bell  rang  clear 
And  ceased;  and  all  was  awe, — the  breath 
Of  God  in  man  that  warranteth 
The  inmost  utmost  things  of  faith. 
He  said:  "O  God,  my  world  in  Thee!"145 

That  mysticism  has  often  run  riot  in  magic,  history  attests, 
and  side  by  side  with  what  we  must  admit  to  be  a  well-defined 
mystical  cast  of  mind  in  Rossetti,  is  a  curious  turn  for  superstition, 
for  weird,  uncommon  forms,  for  apparitions  and  ghostly  figuresr 
charms  and  mysteries.146     Sister  Helen,  melting  the  waxen  image 

143  Ibid.,  p.  283. 

144  Swinburne,  A.  C.,  Essays  and  Studies,  London,  1875,  pp.  85-90. 

145  Rossetti,  Dante  Gabriel,  Op.  cit.,  p.  186. 

146  Rossetti,  William,  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  as  Designer  and  Writer,  p.  124. 


42  SOME   EVIDENCES   OF  MYSTICISM   IN   ENGLISH 

of  Keith  of  Ewern,  her  guilt  emphasized  by  the  innocent  prattle  of 
her  little  brother;  "Rose  Mary,"  with  its  tale  of  evil  spirits  having 
power  over  none  save  the  sin-stained;  the  wild  story  of  Adam  and 
Lilith,  give  proof  of  how  well  fitted  he  was  to  show  himself  a 
master  in  this  unreal  world. 

With  the  wider  movements  of  life,  Rossetti  was  little  in  touch: 
a  single  purpose,  a  sole  idea,  enthralled  and  absorbed  him.  The 
ultimate  realities  of  life  for  him  lay  neither  in  intellectual  striving 
nor  in  moral  action,  but  in  that  beauty  which  Goethe147  held  to  be 
a  primeval  phenomenon,  never  visible  itself  but  seen  in  a  thousand 
various  expressions  of  the  creative  mind,  and  which  Plato148 
discerned  as  a  reflection  of  heavenly  beauty,  which  he  who  looks 
on,  worships  as  divine.  To  Rossetti,  this  beauty  was  not  one 
form  through  which  the  soul  expresses  itself — it  was  identical 
with  the  soul,  and  its  clearest  manifestation  was  in  a  woman's  face : 

"This  is  that  Lady  Beauty,  in  whose  praise 
Thy  voice  and  hand  shake  still, — long  known  to  thee 
By  flying  hair  and  fluttering  hem,  the  beat 
Following  her  daily,  of  thy  heart  and  feet, 
How  passionately  and  irresistibly ! 
In  what  fond  flight,  how  many  ways  and  days."149 

It  was  in  the  light  of  this  beauty  that  he  interpreted  all  his  ex- 
periences. The  result  is,  that  his  poetry  displays  a  strange  fusion 
of  the  sensuous  and  the  spiritual. 

Theodore  Watts  says  of  him,  "To  eliminate  asceticism  from 
romantic  art,  and  yet  to  remain  romantic;  to  retain  that  mysticism 
which  alone  can  give  life  to  romantic  art,  and  yet  to  be  as  sensuous 
as  the  Titians  who  revived  sensuousness  at  the  sacrifice  of  mysti- 
cism, was  the  quest,  more  or  less  conscious,  of  Rossetti's  genius."150 
Precisely  because  of  this  attempt  to  cast  aside  the  claims  of 
renunciation  and  sacrifice,  we  find  in  Rossetti's  poetry  something 
of  that  dull  gray  sense  of  loss,  which  he  has  pictured  so  well  in 
"Proserpine,"  when  the  soul  realizes  that  she  has  tasted  too  freely 
of  lower  joys,  and  the  sense  of  bondage  that  comes  when  she 
discovers  she  had  chosen  to  rule  on  earth,  rather  than  to  serve  in 
heaven. 


147  Cf.  Eckermann,  J.  P.,  Gesprdche  mit  Goethe,  Leipsig,  1902,  Band  II,  p.  300. 

148  Cf.  Plato,  Phaedrus,  247.     The  Banquet,  210,  211,  212. 

149  Rossetti,  Dante  Gabriel,  Op.  cit.,  "The  House  of  Life,"  p.  195. 

190  Watts-Dunton,  Theodore,  Nineteenth  Century,  13,  405,  Art.  "The  Truth 
About  Rossetti." 


POETRY   OF  THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY  43 

"Afar  away  the  light  that  brings  cold  cheer 
Unto  this  wall,  one  instant  and  no  more, 
Admitted  at  my  distant  palace-door. 
Afar  the  flowers  of  Enna  from  this  drear 
Dire  fruit,  which,  tasted  once,  must  thrall  me  here. 
Afar  those  skies  from  this  Tartarean  gray 
That  chills  me :  and  afar,  how  far  away, 
The  nights  that  shall  be  from  the  days  that  were."151 

Greatly  as  Rossetti  was  influenced,  in  the  treatment  and  coloring 
of  his  subjects,  by  the  Italian  Middle  Ages,  yet  he  caught  but 
one  phase  of  their  spirit.  It  is  true,  the  whole  original  literature 
of  that  time  was  a  spontaneous  creation  of  love,  but  there  was 
another  kind  of  love  than  that  which  gave  a  theme  to  Cavalcanti 
and  to  Guinicelli.  There  was  the  love  of  which  St.  Francis  of 
Assisi152  and  Jacopone  da  Todi153  sang — a  heavenly  love  seeking  out 
alike  the  unconsidered  girl,  and  the  eager  leader  of  affairs,  and 
ravishing  them  with  His  beauty.  That  an  English  poet  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  whose  attraction  for  Catholicism  lay  rather 
in  its  ritual  than  in  its  creed,  and  whose  sympathy  was  rather 
with  the  physical  beauty  of  Christianity  than  with  its  moral  code, 
should  fail  to  perceive  this,  is  not  strange;  but  in  that  he  did  so 
fail,  we  hold  his  mysticism  an  exotic,  and  theirs  a  true  growth. 


51  Rossetti,  Dante  Gabriel,  Op.  cit.,  "Sonnets,"  p.  281. 

152  Cf .  Ozanam,  Frederick,  The  Franciscan  Poets  in  Italy  of  the  Thirteenth 
Century,  translated  by  A.  E.  Nellen  and  N.  C.  Craig,  New  York,  1915,  p.  49  ff. 

153  Ibid.,  p.  186,  ff. 


44  SOME   EVIDENCES   OF  MYSTICISM    IN   ENGLISH 

CHAPTER  VI 

PATMORE:  GOD  SOUGHT  THROUGH  HUMAN  LOVE 

Wordsworth  had  sought  the  Ultimate  Reality  through  nature, 
and  Rossetti  through  beauty :  Patmore  believed  that  in  the  highest 
and  strongest  of  human  affections  he  had  found,  not  only  the  type, 
but  the  means,  whereby  the  soul  might  meet  with  God.154  He 
thought  he  had  discovered  in  the  relation  of  wedded  lovers  the 
truest  analogy  of  the  relation  between  God  and  the  soul,  between 
Humanity  and  Divinity.  God  he  conceived  of  as  the  great 
masculine,  positive  force:  the  soul  as  the  feminine,  or  receptive 
force,  and  the  meeting  of  these  two  in  mystic  rapture  as  the  source 
of  all  life  and  all  joy.155  Divinity  can  be  revealed  only  by  submit- 
ting to  limitations,  and  hence  it  is  through  human  affections  that 
we  come  to  realize  the  possibility  of  contact  between  the  finite  and 
the  Infinite.156  He  held  that  "the  phenomena  of  the  human  rela- 
tionships of  love  are  such  because  they  are  the  realities  of  the 
Divine."157 

This  idea  had  attracted  him  even  before  his  conversion  to  the 
Catholic  faith,  and  later,  he  believed  he  had  found  confirmation 
of  it  in  the  writings  of  the  great  Catholic  mystics,  St.  Bernard, 
St.  John  of  the  Cross,  and  St.  Teresa.158  His  first  work  of  any 
V  moment  was  "The  Angel  in  the  House"  wherein  he  essayed  to  be 
the  poet  of  wedded  life.  He  tells  us, 

"Not  careless  of  the  gift  of  song, 
Nor  out  of  love  with  noble  fame, 
I,  meditating  much  and  long 
What  I  should  sing,  how  win  a  name, 
Considering  well  what  theme  unsung, 
What  reason  worth  the  cost  of  rhyme, 
Remains  to  loose  the  poet's  tongue 
In  these  last  days,  the  dregs  of  time, 
Learn  that  to  me,  though  born  so  late, 
There  does,  beyond  desert,  befall 
(May  my  great  fortune  make  me  great !) 
The  first  of  themes  sung  last  of  all."159 

164  Cf.  Patmore,  Autobiography  given  in  Champ ney,  Memoirs  and  Corre- 
spondence of  Coventry  Patmore,  London,  1900,  Vol.  II,  pp.  45-47. 

156  Cf .  Patmore,  Religio  Poetae,  London,  1905,  p.  162,  ff. 
166  Cf.  Ibid.,  Rod,  Root  and  Flower,  London,  1905,  p.  102. 

157  Ibid.,  Religio  Poetae,  p.  174. 

158  Cf.  Ibid.,  p.  50-56. 

169  Patmore,  Poems,  London,  1906,  "The  Angel  in  the  House,"  Prologue,  p.  4. 


POETRY   OF  THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY  45 

In  this  poem  Patmore  holds  forth  a  pure  and  gracious  type  of 
womanhood  as  a  call  on  man's  respect,  and  evinces  a  knowledge 
of  the  excellences  of  a  true  woman's  mind.  He  shows  a  subtle 
insight  into  her  moods  and  sentiments,  and  though  the  characters 
are  sketched,  rather  than  delineated,  yet  they  are  living  person- 
alities, not  vivified  statues.  It  is  in  the  "Preludes,"  however, 
that  the  true  theme  and  temper  of  the  poem  is  struck.  These, 
with  the  "Epilogues"  give  an  analysis  of  the  psychology  of  love 
with  a  precision  of  insight  and  ecstasy  of  feeling  all  the  more 
untrammeled  because  the  poet  believed  the  bewildering  happiness 
of  which  he  sang  to  be  not  unlike  the  love  of  the  blessed  in  heaven. 
It  is  meant  to  be  "a  purely  aesthetic  observation  of  a  certain  phase 
of  life,  conceived  in  the  intoxicating  light  of  imagination.  It  is 
Pat  more 's  great  claim  upon  our  respect  that  he  has  understood 
its  dignity,  and  recorded  it  so  delicately."160 

He  was,  by  nature,  a  mystic,  and  he  felt  himself  drawn  more  and 
more  irresistibly  towards  the  transcendent  and  the  supernatural. 
Here  and  there  throughout  this  poem  there  are  intimations  that, 
worthy  of  his  best  gifts  as  he  considered  his  subject,  a  loftier  Muse 
than  that  of  the  family  circle  was  gaining  power  over  him.  In 
"Perfect  Love  Rare"  he  complains, 

"Most  rare  is  still  most  noble  found, 
Most  noble  still  most  incomplete; 
Sad  law,  which  leaves  King  Love  uncrown 'd 
In  this  obscure,  terrestrial  seat!"161 

and  in  "Love  Justified"  we  find, 

"After  awhile 

This  pool  of  private  charity 
Shall  make  its  continent  an  isle 
And  roll,  a  world  embracing  sea. 

This  little  germ  of  nuptial  love 
Which  springs  so  simply  from  the  sod, 
The  root  is,  as  my  song  shall  prove, 
Of  all  our  love  to  man  and  God."162 

"Love's  Immortality"  contains  a  yet  clearer  expression  of  this 
tendency : 


'    lfl°  Cf.  Gosse,  Edmund,  Coventry  Patmore,  London,  1905,  p.  100. 

181  Patmore,  Poems,  ed.  cit.,  p.  36. 

182  Ibid.,  p.  37. 


46  SOME   EVIDENCES   OF  MYSTICISM   IN   ENGLISH 

"My  faith  is  fast 
That  all  the  loveliness  I  sing 
Is  made  to  bear  the  mortal  blast, 
And  blossom  in  a  better  spring."163 

In  "Orpheus"  he  would 

"with  heart-persuading  might, 
Pursue  the  Poet's  sacred  task 
Of  superseding  faith  by  sight. 

To  prouder  folly  let  me  show 
Earth  by  divine  light  made  divine, 
And  let  the  saints,  who  hear  my  word, 
Say,  *Lo,  the  clouds  begin  to  shine 
About  the  coming  of  the  Lord.'  "164 

"Faithful  Forever"  and  "The  Victories  of  Love"  record  this 
transition  period.  Both  of  them  picture  a  noble  devotion  with 
no  satisfying  completion;  an  intense  human  feeling  which  seeks 
to  realize  itself  in  a  kind  of  ecstasy,  restless  under  the  limitations 
of  nature  and  the  perplexing  problems  of  mortal  destiny,  and 
subdued  and  softened  by  sorrow.  Earthly  love  still  remains  in  the 
soul,  but  as  a  heavenly  presence  rather  than  an  earthly  influence, 
inspiring  a  high  sense  of  duty,  and  awakening  the  hope  of  some 
glorious  sequel  to  this  unfinished  love,  in  which  "the  human  reality 
shall  not  be  wholly  superseded  by  the  celestial  ideal,  but  in  which 
a  secondary  service  to  the  bright  original  form  of  tangible  beauty, 
in  some  new  angelic  phase  of  being,  shall  be  reconcilable  with  a 
self-surrender  to  the  claims  of  Divine  Life,  and  the  duties  of 
universal  love."165 

"For  all  delights  of  earthly  love 
Are  shadows  of  the  heavens,  and  move 
As  other  shadows  do:  they  flee 
From  him  that  follows  them:  and  he 
Who  flies,  forever  finds  his  feet 
Embraced  by  their  pursuings  sweet."166 

It  is  not,  however,  in  these  earlier  poems  that  Patmore  displays 
his  powers  at  their  best.  In  the  "Unknown  Eros,"  especially  in 
the  "Psyche"  odes,  his  genius  reached  its  culminating  point.  In 
Rod,  Root,  and  Flower,  he  says:  "There  comes  a  time  in  the  life 


163  Ibid.,  p.  41. 

164  Ibid.,  p.  81. 

i6B  "Faithful  Forever,"  Review  in  Living  Age,  67,  764. 
166  Patmore,  Poems,  ed.  cit.,  p.  255. 


POETRY    OF   THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY  47 

of  every  one  who  follows  the  Truth  with  full  sincerity  when  God 
reveals  to  the  sensitive  Soul  the  fact  that  He  alone  can  satisfy 
those  longings,  the  satisfaction  of  which  she  has  hitherto  been 
tempted  to  seek  elsewhere.  Then  follows  a  series  of  experiences 
which  constitute  the  "sure  mercies  of  David."167  Of  these  "ex- 
periences" the  poet  has  told  us  nothing.  With  one  bound,  he 
passes  alike  the  "via  purgetiva"  and  "via  illuminativa,"  to  breathe 
the  rarefied  air  of  "via  unitiva,"  and  to  utter  forth  "that  formless, 
unintelligible  blaze  of  mystic  doctrine  into  human  words  of  honied  , 
peace  and  beauty"168  through  a  series  of  "Odes"  which  for  poig- 
nancy of  emotion  and  exaltation  of  thought  are  scarcely  equalled 
in  the  English  language.  They  are  meant  to  deal  with  that 
"region  of  religion  which  is  inexpressible  in  human  language  to  the 
human  heart,"169  and  admit  of  appreciation  only  so  far  as  the 
spiritual  life  is  a  comprehended  reality.  Patmore  felt  that  they 
would  be  a  "language  dead"170  to  many:  he  calls  them 

"chants  as  of  a  lonely  thrush's  throat 
At  latest  eve, 

That  does  in  each  calm  note 
Both  joy  and  grieve; 
Notes  few  and  strong  and  fine 
Gilt  with  sweet  days  decline, 
And  sad  with  promise  of  a  different  sun."171 

It  was  his  theory  that  a  poet  might  say  truths  which  it  is  not 
expedient  for  others  to  utter,  and  diffuse  their  warmth  and  light, 
while  allowing  their  scorching  brilliance  to  remain  invisible:172  this 
he  attempted  to  do  for  the  mystics,  whose  teachings  he  thought 
too  little  known.173 

"Eros  and  Psyche"  begins  with  the  plaintive  cry  of  the  soul: 

"Love,  I  heard  tell  of  thee  so  oft!"174 

Thrice,  in  touches  of  human  love,  the  soul  has  felt  the  solitary 
beat  of  sudden  wings, 

"Through  delicatest  ether  feathering  soft"175 


187  Cf .  Ibid.,  Rod,  Root  and  Flower,  p.  57. 

168  Patmore,  Extracts  from  Letters,  Champney,  Op.  cit.,  Vol.  I,  p.  250. 

169  Ibid.,  p.  258. 

170  Ibid.,  Poems,  ed.  cit.,  "A  Dead  Language,"  p.  359. 

171  Ibid.,  "The  Unknown  Eros,"  Proem,  p.  271. 

172  Cf.  Rod,  Root  and  Flower,  p.  33. 

173  Cf.  Patmore,  Religio  Poetae,  p.  7. 

174  Ibid.,  Poems,  ed.  cit.,  p.  337. 
176  Ibid. 


48  SOME   EVIDENCES   OF  MYSTICISM   IN   ENGLISH 

which  have  awakened  in  it  a  desire  for  greater  intimacy  and 
stronger  love: 

"Long  did  I  muse,  what  service  or  what  charm, 
Might  lure  thee,  blissful  Bird,  into  mine  arms."176 

All  efforts  at  self -decoration  on  the  part  of  the  soul  are  in  vain: 
they  are  not  "fit  strings"177  with  which  to  entice  the  spirit  that 
comes  only  of  His  own  will. 

"At  last,  of  endless  failure  much  afraid, 
Tonight  I  would  do  nothing  but  lie  still 
And  promise,  wert  thou  once  within  my  window  sill 
Thine  unknown  will."178 

This  is  the  wise  passivity  of  the  mystics,  and  the  attitude  of  mind 
recommended  by  St.  Teresa:  "Let  the  master  of  the  house  do 
what  he  pleases;  He  is  wise  and  powerful;  he  understands  what  is 
best  for  you,  and  best  for  himself  also."179  Quite  in  accord,  also, 
with  the  teachings  of  this  Saint  that  disinterested  love  is  the  surest 
means  of  obtaining  divine  favor,  and  that  He  often  comes  to  the 
soul  when  she  is  least  thinking  of  it,  are  the  lines  that  follow: 

"And  here — and  how  thou  mad'st  me  start! 
Thou  art!"180 

God  seeks  the  soul  with  more  ardor  than  she  longs  for  Him : 

"Ah,  Psyche,  guess'd  you  nought 
I  craved  but  to  be  caught? 
Wanton,  it  was  not  you 
But  I  that  did  so  passionately  sue: 
And  for  your  beauty,  not  unscathed,  I  fought 
With  Hades,  ere  I  own'd  in  you  a  thought."181 

The  soul  revels  in  the  delights  of  divine  Love: 

"O  Heavenly  Lover  true 
Is  this  they  mouth  upon  my  forehead  pressed, 
Are  these  thine  arms  about  my  bosom  link'd? 
Are  these  thine  hands  that  tremble  near  my  heart, 
Where  join  two  hearts,  for  juncture  more  distinct?"182 


«'  Ibid. 

177  Ibid. 

178  Ibid. 

179  St.  Teresa,  The  Way  of  Perfection,  translated  by  Dalton,  London,  1357, 
p.  82. 

180  Ibid.,  The  Interior  Castle,  translated  by  the  Benedictines  of  Stanbrook, 
1906,  p.  76-77. 

181  Patmore,  Poems,  ed.  cit.,  p.  338. 
is2  Ibid. 


POETRY   OF  THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY  49 

and  in  the  light  of  this  revelation  all  past  experiences  assume  a 
new  aspect: 

"What  dim,  waste  tracts  of  life  shine  sudden  like  moonbeams 
On  windless  ocean  shaken  by  sweet  dreams."183 

The  soul  fears  too  much  of  human  passion  in  this  joyous  abandon- 
ment of  herself,  and  asks 

"Yet  how  'scape  quite 

Nor  pluck  pure  pleasure  with  profane  delight? 
How  know  I  that  my  Love  is  what  he  seems!"184    By  deeds: 

"Tisthis: 
I  make  the  childless  to  keep  joyful  house. 

A  friend,  my  Psyche,  comes  with  barren  bliss, 
A  God's  embraces  never  are  in  vain."185 

Here  again  there  is  a  harking  back  to  the  older  mystics.  The  soul 
whom  God  has  chosen  for  his  special  dwelling  place,  must  needs 
forget  herself:  all  her  thoughts  are  bent  on  how  to  please  Him 
better,  and  when  and  how  she  can  show  her  love  for  Him.  St. 
Teresa  says,  "This  is  the  aim  and  end  of  prayer,  this  is  the  reason 
for  the  spiritual  marriage,  whose  children  are  always  good 
works,"186  and  St.  John  of  the  Cross, 

"  In  search  of  my  Love 
I  will  traverse  mountains  and  strands: 
I  will  gather  no  flowers, 
I  will  fear  no  wild  beasts : 
And  I  will  overpass  the  mighty  and  the  frontiers."187 

The  labors  and  sufferings  from  which  she  has  hitherto  held  back 
as  beyond  her  strength,  are  eagerly  embraced : 

'  'Tis  easier  grown 
Thine  arduous  rule  to  don 
Than  for  a  Bride  to  put  her  bride-dress  on ! 
Nay,  rather,  now 

'Tis  no  more  service  to  be  borne  serene, 
Whither  thou  wilt,  thy  stormful  wings  between."188 


»» Ibid. 
18«  Ibid. 
"'  Ibid. 

186  Interior  Castle,  ed.  cit.,  p.  284. 

187  A  Spiritual  Canticle,  Writings  of  St.  John  of  the  Cross,  translated  by 
Lewis,  London,  1911,  Vol.  II,  p.  4. 

188  Patmore,  Poems,  ed.  cit.,  p.  339. 


50  SOME   EVIDENCES   OF  MYSTICISM   IN   ENGLISH 

The  soul  fears  to  find  an  imperfection  in  her  burning  love  for  Him : 

"But,  oh! 
Can  I  endure 
This  flame,  yet  live  for  what  thou  lov'st  me  pure?"189 

and  the  Christ  Lover,  in  tender  humanness  replies : 

"Himself  the  God  let  blame, 
If  all  about  him  bursts  to  quenchless  flame ! 
My  Darling,  know 

Your  spotless  fairness  is  not  matched  in  snow, 
But  in  the  integrity  of  fire. 
What'er  you  are,  Sweet,  I  require. 
A  sorry  God  were  he 
That  fewer  claim'd  than  all  Love's  mighty  kingdoms  three."190 

He  is  not  satisfied  with  the  mere  homage  of  mind  and  will,  the 
affections  must  play  some  part  in  His  worship.    As  the  soul  marvels 

"What  thing  is  this? 

A  God  to  make  me,  nothing,  needful  to  his  bliss, 
And  humbly  wait  my  favor  for  a  kiss!" 

she  is  reminded,  that  should  a  great  King, 

"Sue  from  her  hedge  a  little  Gipsy  Maid, 
For  far  off  royalty  bewray'd 
By  some  wild  beauties,  to  herself  unknown,"191 

and  by 

"Some  power  by  all  but  him  unguessed 
Of  growing  king-like  were  she  king  caressed,"192 

on  the  sole  condition  that  she  should  feel 

"  Her  nothingness  her  giddiest  boast, 
As  being  the  charm  for  which  he  loved  her  most,"193 

he  would  be  justly  wroth  with  her  should  she  desist,  and  think 
herself  too  base  a  reed 

"to  trill  so  blest  a  tone!"194 

In  the  lines  which  follow,  the  soul  is  represented  as  reaching  the 
heights  of  ecstasy : 

1«>  Ibid. 

™  Ibid. 
™  Ibid. 

I'2  Ibid. 

"•3  Ibid.,  p.  340. 
"«  Ibid. 


POETRY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY  51 

"O  too  much  joy;  O  touch  of  airy  fire; 
O  turmoil  of  content;  O  unperturbed  desire,"196 

and  she,  like  St.  Catherine  of  Sienna,  who  asked  for  "yet  more 
sufferings,  O  Lord,  yet  more"196  cries  out, 

"Bitter  be  thy  behests! 

Lie  like  a  bunch  of  myrrh  between  my  aching  breasts. 
Some  greatly  pangful  penance  would  I  brave 
Sharpness  me  save 
From  being  slain  by  sweet!"197 

The  divine  Lover  bids  her  not  seek  for  sufferings  save  as  they  come : 

"Custom's  joy-killing  breath 
Shall  bid  you  sigh  full  soon  for  custom  killing  death."198 

The  soul  is  ready  to  obey,  yet  she  must  make  her  protestation  of 
fidelity, 

"In  all  I  thee  obey!  and  thus  I  know 
That  all  is  well."199 

In  St.  Teresa  we  read,  "Do  you  know  what  it  is  to  be  truly 
spiritual?  It  is  for  men  to  be  the  slaves  of  God, — branded  with 
His  mark,  which  is  the  cross,"200  and  here  the  soul  exclaims  in  a 
fever  of  impassioned  zeal, 

"Thy  love  has  conquered  me:  do  with  me  as  thou  wilt, 
And  use  me  as  a  chattel  that  is  thine ! 
Kiss,  tread  me  under  foot,  cherish  or  beat, 
Sheathe  in  my  heart  sharp  pain  up  to  the  hilt, 
Invent  what  else  were  most  perversely  sweet; 
Nay,  let  the  Fiend  drag  me  through  dens  of  guilt; 
Let  Earth,  Heav'n,  Hell 
'Gainst  my  content  combine; 
What  could  make  nought  the  touch  that  made  thee  mine!"201 

But  when  the  vision  would  depart,  her  courage  ebbs : 

"Ah,  say  not  yet,  farewell!"202 
and  the  answer  is  a  playful  taunt: 

"Behold,  Beloved,  the  penance  you  would  brave."203 


195  Ibid. 

196  Cf .  Dialogues  of  St.  Catherine  of  Sienna,  translated  by  Thorold,  London, 
1913. 

197  Patmore,  Poems,  p.  340. 

198  Ibid. 

199  Ibid.       . 

200  The  Interior  Castle,  Op.  cit.,  p.  285. 

201  Patmore,  Poems,  ed.  cit.,  p.  342. 

202  Ibid. 
208  Ibid. 


52  SOME   EVIDENCES   OF  MYSTICISM   IN   ENGLISH 

In  touching  humility,  the  soul  acknowledges  her  weakness : 

"Cursed  when  it  comes,  the  bitter  thing  we  crave! 
Thou  leav'st  me  now,  like  to  the  moon  at  dawn, 
A  little  vacuous  world  alone  in  air. 
I  will  not  care. 
When  dark  comes  back  my  dark  shall  be  withdrawn ! 

Go  as  thou  wilt  and  come !  Lover  divine, 
Thou  still  art  jealously  and  wholly  mine. 

Rainbow,  thou  hast  my  heaven  sudden  spanned 

I  am  the  apple  of  thy  glorious  gaze, 

Each  else  life  cent 'ring  to  a  different  blaze."204 

and  to  prove  that  the  vision  is  a  true  one,  fructifying  in  action, 
she  adds: 

"Whilst  thou  art  gone,  I'll  search  the  weary  meads, 
To  deck  my  bed  with  lilies  of  fair  deeds!"205 

Then  follows  a  delicately,  coyly  candid  invitation  to  the  Bride- 
groom to  visit  her  again : 

"And  if  thou  choose  to  come  this  eventide, 
A  touch,  my  Love,  will  set  my  casement  wide."206 

In  the  second  of  the  "Psyche"  odes,  "De  Natura  Deorum,"  we 
have  the  relation  between  God  and  the  soul  expressed  in  imagery 
that  is  essentially  human,  and  daintily  subtle.  Psyche,  troubled 
at  the  dread  God  who  has  won  her  heart,  conscious  that  she  is 
foolish,  weak,  and  small,  and  fearful  lest  He  visit  her  no  more, 
seeks  the  "Wise  Mother,"  who  comforts  her: 

"Know 

Sweet  little  daughter  sad, 
He  did  but  feign  to  go; 
And  never  more 
Shall  cross  thy  window  sill, 
Or  pass  beyond  thy  door, 
Save  by  thy  will. 

He  is  present  now  in  some  dim  place  apart 
Of  the  ivory  house  wherewith  thou  mad'st  him  glad."207 


204  Ibid. 
206  Ibid. 
206  Ibid. 
™  Ibid.,  p.  344. 


POETRY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY  53 

This  is  in  harmony  with  the  teaching  of  the  Catholic  mystics  that 
a  soul  once  raised  to  the  heights  of  contemplation,  rarely  loses 
that  grace.208  The  soul  laments  her  un worthiness : 

"Sadness  and  change  and  pain 
Shall  me  forever  stain; 
For,  though  my  blissful  fate 
Be  for  a  billion  years, 
How  shall  I  stop  my  tears 
That  life  was  once  so  low  and  Love  arrived  so  late."209 

St.  John  of  the  Cross  tells  us,  that  when  "the  interior  favor  of  the 
king's  scepter"210  is  extended  to  the  soul,  it  becomes  so  bold  in  its 
intense  and  loving  exaltation,  that  no  prudence  can  withhold  it, 
no  counsel  content  it,  no  shame  restrain  it;  for  the  favor  which 
God  hath  shown  it  has  made  it  vehemently  bold.211  In  "Psyche's 
Discontent"  we  read, 

"Leave  me  awhile  that  I  may  shew  thee  clear 
How  Goddess-like  thy  love  has  lifted  me; 
How  seeming  lone  upon  the  gaunt,  lone  shore, 
I'll  trust  thee  near, 

When  thou'rt  to  knowledge  of  my  heart,  no  more 
Than  a  dream's  heed 

Of  lost  joy  track'd  in  scent  of  the  sea- weed ! 
Leave  me  to  pluck  the  incomparable  flower 
Of  frailty  lion-like  fighting  in  thy  name  and  power; 
To  make  thee  laugh  in  thy  safe  heaven,  to  see 
With  what  grip  fell 

I'll  cling  to  hope  when  life  draws  hard  to  hell. 
Yea,  cleave  to  thee,  when  me  thou  seem'st  to  slay, 
Haply,  at  close  of  some  most  cruel  day, 
To  find  myself  in  thy  reveal'd  arms  clasped, 
Just  when  I  say, 
My  feet  have  slipp'd  at  last!"212 

The  soul  has  grown  so  strong  that  delight  is  to  her  a  "fond  indig- 
nity"213 and  she  merits  the  reproach  of  her  Lord: 

"Little  bold  Femininity, 
That  darest  blame  Heaven,  what  would'st  thou  have  or  be?"214 


208  Cf.  St.  Teresa,  The  Interior  Castle,  p.  259.     St.  John  of  the  Cross,  The 
Obscure  Night  of  the  Soul,  ed.  cit.,  p.  448. 
2og  Patmore,  Poems,  ed.  cit.,  p.  344. 

210  Op.  tit.,  p.  438. 

211  Cf.  Patmore,  Poems,  pp.  438-439. 

212  Ibid.,  pp.  349-350. 

213  Ibid. 

214  Ibid.,  p.  350. 


54  SOME   EVIDENCES   OF  MYSTICISM   IN   ENGLISH 

Her  response  is  a  paeon  of  humility  and  ardor : 

"Shall  I,  the  gnat  which  dances  in  the  ray, 
Dare  to  be  reverent?     Therefore,  dare  I  say 
I  cannot  guess  the  good  that  I  desire; 
But  this  I  know,  I  spurn  the  gifts  which  Hell 
Can  mock  till  which  is  which  'tis  hard  to  tell. 
I  love  Thee,  God;  yea,  and  'twas  such  assault 
As  this  which  made  me  thine;  if  that  be  fault; 
But  I,  thy  Mistress,  merit  should  thine  ire, 
If  aught  so  little,  transitory  and  low 
As  this  which  made  me  thine 
Should  hold  me  so." 

The  Master  is  satisfied: 

"Little  to  thee,  my  Psyche,  is  this,  but  much  to  me." 

"Accept  the  sweet,  and  say  'tis  sacrifice! 
Sleep,  Center  to  the  tempest  of  my  love, 
And  dream  thereof, 

And  keep  the  smile  which  sleeps  within  thy  face 
Like  sunny  eve  in  some  forgotten  place."215 

Mr.  Edmund  Gosse,  in  his  Life  of  Coventry  Pat  more  remarks: 
"The  typical  mystic  has  no  pity  for  his  wretched  body.  It  is  in 
a  cloud  of  fatigue  and  anguish,  in  voluntary  tribulation  inflicted 
without  mercy,  that  the  saints  of  this  type  obtained  their  visions. 
.  .  .  For  this  kind  of  penitential  hysteria  Patmore  had  the 
greatest  possible  disdain."216  Passing  over  the  fact  that  among 
the  mystics  whose  teachings  are  held  in  greatest  esteem  by  the 
Church,  we  find  no  authority  for  depreciation  of  the  body,  but  only 
for  repression  of  unlawful  claims,  there  is  in  Patmore's  work, 
sufficient  proof  that  he  was  in  full  accord  with  the  orthodox  Cath- 
olic doctrine  of  asceticism.  In  "Eros  and  Psyche,"  the  soul, 
urged  by  her  great  love  is  made  to  say : 

"Shouldst  thou  me  tell 
Out  of  thy  warm  caress  to  go 
And  roll  my  body  in  the  biting  snow, 
My  very  body's  joy  were  but  increased; 
More  pleasant  'tis  to  please  than  to  be  pleased."217 


215  Ibid.,  pp.  350-351. 

216  Gosse,  Edmund,  Op.  cit.,  p.  165. 

217  Patmore,  Poems,  ed.  cit.,  p.  341. 


POETRY   OF  THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY  55 

Psyche,  in  "De  Natura  Deorum,"  calls  her  self-inflicted  wounds 
the  effect  of 

"Happiness  at  play, 
And  speech  of  tenderness  no  speech  can  say."218 

and  complains 

"He  loves  me  dearly,  but  he  shakes  a  whip 
Of  deathless  scorpions  at  my  slightest  slip." 

She  asks,  in  "Psyche's  Discontent," 

"To  bear,  apart  from  thy  delight  and  thee, 
The  fardel  coarse  of  customary  life's 
Exceeding  injucundity."219 

In  "Victory  and  Defeat"  the  poet  says, 

"Ah,  God,  alas, 
How  soon  it  came  to  pass 
The  sweetness  melted  from  thy  barbed  hook 
Which  I  so  simply  took; 
And  I  lay  bleeding  on  the  bitter  land, 
Afraid  to  stir  against  thy  least  command. 

Thereafter  didst  thou  smite 

So  hard  that,  for  a  space, 

Uplifted  seem'd  Heav'n's  everlasting  door, 

And  I  the  darling  of  thy  grace."220 

Patmore  was  an  aristocrat,  and  abhorred  the  crowd  in  religion  as 
in  politics.221  He  sought  the  high  planes  of  the  spiritual  life,  and 
this  temper  of  mind  explains,  perhaps,  his  attraction  for  St.  John 
of  the  Cross,  of  whom  it  has  been  said  that  he  acted  towards  the 
Lord  like  a  Spanish  grandee  in  the  presence  of  his  king.222 

The  only  kind  of  well-being  with  which  Patmore  was  much 
concerned  was  that  which  led  to  spiritual  and  moral  growth,  in  the 
effecting  of  which  pain  has  always  been  considered  a  necessai 
element.  The  full  force  and  meaning  of  the  ode  in  which  he  sings 
the  praises  of  "Pain"  are  too  obvious  to  permit  of  misinterpreta- 
tion : 


™lbid.,  p.  346. 

219  Ibid.,  p.  349. 

220  Ibid.,  pp.  307-308. 

121  Cf.  Ibid.,  "1867"  and  "1880-85,"  pp.  291,  ff,  and  299,  ff. 

221  Cf.  Joly.  Henri,  Psychologic  des  Saints,  Paris,  1895,  p.  78. 


56  SOME   EVIDENCES   OF  MYSTICISM   IN   ENGLISH 

"O  Pain,  Love's  mystery, 
Close  next  of  kin 
To  joy  and  heart's  delight, 
Low  Pleasure's  opposite, 
Choice  food  of  sanctity 
And  medicine  of  sin, 
Angel,  whom  even  they  that  will  pursue 
Pleasure  with  hell's  whole  gust 
Find  that  they  must 
Perversely  woo, 
My  lips,  thy  live  coal  touching,  speak  thee  true."223 

When  his  poetic  powers  were  in  their  maturity,  Patmore  conceived 
a  desire  to  dedicate  his  gifts  to  the  Mother  of  God;  to  bring  back 
to  her  the  golden  coin  she  had  given  him.224  In  "Deliciae  Sapien- 
tiae  de  Amore"  he  had  sung 

"Love,  light  for  me 
Thy  ruddiest  blazing  torch, 
That  I,  albeit  a  beggar  by  the  Porch 
Of  the  glad  Palace  of  Virginity, 
May  gaze  within,  and  sing  the  pomp  I  see."225 

and  in  one  of  his  letters  we  find,  "Perfect  humanity,  verging  upon, 
but  never  entering  the  breathless  region  of  Divinity,  is  the  real 
subject  of  all  true  love-poetry;  but  in  all  love-poetry  hitherto  an 
'ideal'  and  not  a  reality  has  been  the  subject,  more  or  less."226 
In  the  Blessed  Virgin  he  thought  to  find  such  a  reality.  The  poem 
planned  was  destined  never  to  be  completed,  but  "The  Child's 
Purchase"  which  the  poet  meant  to  be  the  "Prologue"  to  his  great 
work,  abounds  in  delicacy  of  feeling,  and  sincerity  of  expression. 
Among  the  many  lines  of  exceeding  beauty  it  contains  are  these: 

"Mother,  thou  lead'st  me  still  by  unknown  ways, 
Giving  the  gifts  I  know  not  how  to  ask, 
Bless  thou  the  work 

Which,  done,  redeems  my  many  wasted  days, 
Makes  white  the  murk, 
And  crowns  the  few  which  thou  wilt  not  dispraise."227 

It  is  interesting  to  note  the  attitude  of  Patmore  toward  the 
other  poets  whose  works  are  here  considered.  For  Wordsworth  he 


223  Patmore,  Poems,  ed.  cit.,  p.  351. 

224  Ibid.,  quoted  in  Champney,  Op.  cit..  Vol.  II,  p.  89. 

226  Ibid.,  p.  330. 

228  Ibid.,  quoted  in  Champney,  Op.  cil.,  Vol.  II,  p.  255. 

227  Ibid.,  Poems,  ed.  cit.,  pp.  358-359. 


POETRY   OF  THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY  57 

had  a  profound  respect.228  There  is  something  very  similar  in  the 
manner  in  which  these  two  poets  viewed,  in  the  retrospect,  the 
experiences  of  their  childhood.  In  his  Autobiography  Patmore 
tells  us:  "Angels  spoke  to  me  from  time  to  time,  as  they  do  to  all, 
and  I  frequently  saw,  as  others  do  in  youth,  the  things  of  earth 
lighted  up  with  the  light  which  was  not  of  earth ;  and  I  was  endowed 
with  what,  from  my  subsequent  experience  of  men,  I  am  obliged  to 
conclude  was  an  unusual  faculty  for  implicitly  believing  my  own 
eyes,  without  regard  to  the  present  defect  of  visible  continuity 
between  their  reports  and  the  facts  of  the  material  and  external 
life.  The  things  I  saw,  in  those  rare  moments,  when  the  properly 
human  eye  was  open,  remained  with  me,  as  abiding  marks,  and 
were  the  jewels  of  my  life."229  In  "Auras  of  Delight"  there  are 
lines  that  recall  "Intimations  of  Immortality." 

"And  Him  I  thank,  who  can  make  live  again, 
The  dust,  but  not  the  joy  we  once  profane, 
That  I,  of  ye, 

Beautiful  habitations,  auras  of  delight, 
In  childish  years  and  since  had  sometimes  sense  and  sight, 

But  did  for  me  they  altogether  die, 

Those  trackless  glories  glimps'd  in  upper  sky? 

Were  they  of  chance,  or  vain, 

Nor  good  at  all  again 

For  curb  of  heart  or  fret? 

Nay,  though,  by  grace, 

Lest  haply,  I  refuse  God  to  his  face, 

Their  likeness  wholly  I  forget, 

Ah,  yet, 

Often  in  straits  which  else  for  me  were  ill, 

I  mind  me  still 

I  did  respire  the  lonely  auras  sweet, 

I  did  the  blest  abodes  behold."230 

His  relations  with  Rossetti,  in  the  early  days  of  the  Pre-Raphaelite 
movement,  bordered  on  friendship,  but  he  seems  to  have  thought 
the  latter  not  true  to  his  high  trust.  He  had  failed  to  develop  the 
idealism  which  his  earlier  work  had  foreshadowed,  and  Patmore 
came  to  regard  him  as  one  who,  "more  than  any  other  man  since 
the  great  old  artist  age,  had  been  dowered  with  insight  into  spiritual 
mysteries,  that  the  Ark  of  passion  had  been  delivered  into  his 

228  Ibid.,  quoted  in  Champney,  Op.  cit.,  Vol.  II,  pp.  100-101. 
2M  Ibid.,  Autobiography,  Champney,  Op.  cit.,  Vol.  II,  p.  45. 
280  Ibid.,  Poems,  ed.  cit.,  pp.  336-337. 


58  SOME   EVIDENCES   OF  MYSTICISM   IN   ENGLISH 

hands,  and  that  he  had  played  with  it,  had  used  it  to  serve  his 
curiosity  and  his  vanity,  had  profaned  the  Holy  of  Holies."231 

Between  Patmore  and  Francis  Thompson,  the  poet  whose  works 
form  the  subject  of  the  concluding  chapter  of  this  treatise,  there 
was  great  sympathy.  There  is  much  similarity  of  thought,  and 
even  of  form,  in  their  poems.  It  was  Patmore's  wish  that  Thomp- 
son might  be  one  of  those  singers  whom  "Views  of  the  unveil'd 
heavens  alone  bring  forth,"  and  that  he  might  utter  to  a  generation 
better  prepared  than  was  the  one  to  which  Patmore  sang,  the 
immortal  truths  of  David  and  of  Dante.232 


231  Gosse,  Edmund,  Op.  tit.,  p.  207. 
"z  Cf.  Patmore,  Poems,  p.  353. 


POETRY   OF  THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY  59 

CHAPTER  VII 

FRANCIS  THOMPSON:  GOD  SOUGHT  THROUGH  REVELATION 

"To  be  the  poet  of  the  return  to  Nature  is  somewhat,  but  I 
would  be  the  poet  of  the  return  to  God."233  In  no  other  poet  do 
we  find  so  deep  an  insistence  on  the  consciousness  of  God  in  crea- 
tion, as  in  Francis  Thompson :  nowhere  do  we  find  poetry  so  filled 
with  that  "sense  of  something  far  more  deeply  interfused'*234 
as  is  his.  The  eternal  themes  of  Nature,  Man,  and  God,  had  been 
trumpeted  in  Wordsworth,  quired  ethereally  in  Shelley,  voiced 
wistfully  in  Keats,  to  receive  new  "intimations  of  immortality" 
in  Thompson.235  "I  look  to  you  to  crush  out  all  this  false  mysti- 
cism,"236 Coventry  Patmore  had  written  to  him,  and  he  endeavored 
to  fulfill  his  friend's  behest  by  substituting  for  the  sentimental 
vaporings  of  would-be  mystics,  faith:  for  their  cleverly  concealed 
fatalism,  hope:  and  for  their  Nirvana,  the  heaven  of  orthodox 
Christianity. 

Francis  Thompson  was  Catholic  through  and  through,  and 
"his  work  is  the  concrete  refutation  of  the  idea  that  thought  and 
imagination  in  order  to  be  free  must  be  unfettered.  His  freedom 
is  kept  within  the  bonds  of  faith  and  reason,  simply  because  the 
passion  of  the  poet  was  so  completely  informed  by  reason,  and 
his  reason  so  completely  informed  by  faith.  And  it  is  precisely 
the  bonds  of  faith  and  reason  which  have  served  to  make  the 
poet  great."237  To  him  the  vast  universe  is  but  a  reflection  of 
God's  mind,  of  which  man's  unaided  vision  sees  but  an  infin- 
itesimal portion,  and  whose  beauty  is  only  a  faint  suggestion  of 
the  heavenly  ideal,  not  a  component  part.  Thompson  loved 
nature  with  the  worship  of  a  Greek,  yet  his  love  of  nature  had 
nothing  in  common  with  the  new  paganism  and  the  new  pantheism 
of  the  day,  except,  perhaps,  its  intensity.  In  "Nature's  Immor- 
tality" he  says,  "Absolute  Nature  lives  not  in  our  life,  nor  yet  is 
lifeless,  but  lives  in  the  life  of  God;  and  in  so  far,  and  so  far 
merely,  as  man  himself  lives  in  that  life,  does  he  come  into 
sympathy  with  nature,  and  nature  with  him.  She  is  God's 

133  Thompson,  quoted  in  Meynell,  Life  of  Francis  Thompson,  p.  205. 

234  Wordsworth,  Lines  on  Tintern  Abbey. 

235  Cf.  Cock,  "Francis  Thompson,"  Church  Quar.  Rev..  78.  26. 
238  Meynell,  Op.  cit.,  p.  198. 

837  Gerrard,  S.  J.,  Catholic  World,  86.  613,  "Thompson,  The  Poet." 


60  SOME   EVIDENCES   OF  MYSTICISM   IN   ENGLISH 

daughter,  who  stretches  her  hand  only  to  her  Father's  friends. 
Not  Shelley,  not  Wordsworth  himself,  ever  drew  so  close  to  the 
heart  of  nature  as  did  the  Seraph  of  Assisi,  who  was  close  to  the 
heart  of  God."238  This  is  the  teaching  of  the  true  mystic. 

He  had  little  sympathy  with  those  who  would  deify  Nature. 

"Lo,  here  stand  I  and  Nature,  gaze  to  gaze, 
And  I  the  greater.     Crouch  thou  at  my  feet, 
Barren  of  heart,  and  beautiful  of  ways, 
Strong  to  weak  purpose,  fair  and  brute-brained  beast 
I  am  not  of  thy  fools 

Who  goddess  thee  with  impious  flatterings  sweet, 
Stolen  from  the  little  Schools 
Which  cheeped  when  that  great  mouth  of  Rydal  ceased."289 

Earth,  beautiful  as  it  is,  does  not  suffice  for  him;  it  is  a  symbol  of 
eternal  beauty,  but  the  poet  and  mystic  longs  for  the  reality  behind 
the  symbol.  But  a  century  before  Keats  had  sung, 

"Beauty  is  truth,  truth  Beauty, — that  is  all 
Ye  know  on  earth,  and  all  ye  need  to  know."240 

but  a  cycle  of  pain  and  passion  had  intervened,  and  men  were 
ready  to  listen  to  the  message  of  Thompson : 

"O  Heart  of  Nature!  did  man  ever  hear 
Thy  yearned  for  word,  supposed  dear? 
His  pleading  voice  returns  to  him  alone. 
He  hears  none  other  tone. 
No;  No; 

Take  back,  O  Poets,  your  praises  little  wise, 
Nor  fool  weak  hearts  to  their  unshunned  distress, 
Who  deem,  that  even  after  your  device 
They  shall  lie  down  in  Nature's  holiness : 
For  it  was  never  so; 
She  has  no  hands  to  bless : 
Her  pontiff  thou;  she  looks  to  thee, 
O  man:  she  has  no  use,  nor  asks  not,  for  thy  knee."241 

With  the  Nature-mystics  he  revels  in  the  beauty  and  wonder  of 
life,  but  Catholicism  was  as  a  sanctuary  to  him  from  the  pantheism 
which  might  otherwise  have  claimed  him  for  its  own.  "He  can 
draw  exquisite  genre  pictures  of  the  Seasons,  and  evoke  the  shy 
genius-loci  who  informs  the  wind,  or  cloud  or  stream.  The  changes 


238  Prose  Works,  edited  by  Meynell,  p.  82. 

339  On  Nature,  Land  and  Plaint,  Meynell  Edition,  Vol.  II,  p.  162. 

240  Ode  on  a  Grecian   Urn. 

241  Thompson,  Op.  cit. 


POETRY   OF  THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY  61 

on  the  face  of  Nature  he  interprets  in  terms  of  the  moods  joyous  or 
sad,  willful  or  wistful  of  these  unseen  habitants.  Yet  it  is  because 
he  realizes  so  intimately  those  gracious  presences  that  he  cannot 
rest  in  their  finite,  concrete  expression  of  Nature."242  He  be- 
lieves "that  the  intellect  of  man  seems  unable  to  seize  the  divine 
beauty  of  Nature,  until  moving  beyond  that  outward  beauty 
it  gazes  on  the  spirit  of  Nature:  even  so  the  mind  seems  unable 
to  appreciate  the  beautiful  face  of  a  woman  until  it  has  learned 
to  appreciate  the  more  beautiful  beauty  of  her  soul."243 

Nature  affords  no  real  solace  in  the  sterner  passes  of  life:  love 
is  personal,  Nature  is  impersonal: 

"Hope  not  of  Nature;  she  nor  gives  nor  teaches; 
She  suffers  thee  to  take 
But  what  thine  own  hand  reaches, 
And  can  itself  make  sovereign  for  their  ache. 
Ah,  hope  not  her  to  heal 
The  ills  she  cannot  feel 
Or  dry  with  many  businessed  hand  the  tear 
Which  never  yet  was  weak 
In  her  unfettered  eyes,  on  her  uncarked  cheek."244 

He  asks,  "What  is  the  heart  of  Nature,  if  it  exists  at  all?  Is  it, 
according  to  the  conventional  doctrine  derived  from  Wordsworth 
and  Shelley,  a  heart  of  love,  according  with  the  heart  of  man,  and 
stealing  out  to  him  through  a  thousand  avenues  of  mute  sympathy? 
No,  in  this  sense  I  repeat  seriously  what  I  said  lightly:  'Nature 
has  no  heart.'  "245 

If  we  seek,  among  the  mystics,  for  further  confirmation  of  the 
belief  that  in  Nature  there  is  no  final  content  for  man,  we  shall 
find  it  in  Richard  Jeffries.  In  The  Story  of  My  Heart  he  describes 
his  peculiar  mystical  experiences:  "Sometimes  a  very  ecstasy  of 
exquisite  enjoyment  of  the  entire  visible  universe  filled  me." 
Yet  he  refuses  to  see  a  mind  in  Nature,  and  later  when  shattered 
with  pain  of  body,  and  agonized  in  mind,  he  gazed  upon  the 
southern  downs  that  had  received  the  worship  of  his  life,  he  cried,  \s 
"There  is  nothing  human  in  Nature:  give  me  soul  life,  give  me 
love."246 


242  Moynihan,    "The    Symbolism    of    Francis    Thompson,"    Cath.     Univ. 
Bulletin,  19,  25. 

243  A  Renegade  Poet  and  Other  Essays,  p.  57. 

244  On  Nature:  Land  and  Plaint. 

245  Nature's  Immortality. 

248  Jeffries,  The  Story  of  My  Heart,  London,  1907,  p.  199. 


62  SOME   EVIDENCES   OF  MYSTICISM   IN   ENGLISH 

While  Thompson  was  very  far  from  reading  into  Nature  powers 
it  does  not  possess,  he  had  a  true  poet's  susceptibility  to  beauty 
in  child,  and  flower,  and  sky,  but  it  was  the  appreciation"^  the 
mystic,  who  with  a  purified  spirit  comes  "to  enjoy  all  creatures  in 
God,  and  God  in  all  creatures."247 

St.  John  of  the  Cross  says,  "That  thou  mayest  have  pleasure  in 
everything,  seek  pleasure  in  nothing,"248  and  Thompson  in  the 
lines  that  follow  sums  up  the  mystical  doctrine  that  only  by 
leaving  creatures  can  we  find  them  fair: 

"This  Nature  fair 

This  Gate  is  closed,  this  Gate  beautiful, 
No  man  shall  go  in  there 
Since  the  Lord  God  did  pass  through  it; 
'Tis  sealed  unto  the  King, 
The  King  Himself  shall  sit 
Therein,  with  them  that  are  His  following: 
Go:  leave  thy  labor  null; 
Ponder  this  thing 
Lady  divine! 

Thou  giv'st  to  men  good  wine 
And  yet  the  best  thou  hast 
And  nectarous,  keepest  to  the  last, 
And  bring'st  not  forth  before  the  Master's  sign:" 

It  is  not  Nature,  but  man  that  has  gone  wrong : 

"For,  ah,  this  Lady  I  have  much  miscalled: 
No  fault  in  her,  but  in  thy  wooing  is : 

Then  if  thy  wooing  thou  aright  wouldst  'gin 
Lo  here  the  door;  straight  and  rough  shapen  'tis 
And  scant  they  be  that  even  here  make  stays, 
But  do  the  lintel  miss, 
In  dust  of  these  blind  days. 

For  know,  this  Lady  Nature  thou  hast  left, 

Of  whom  thou  fear'st  thee  reft 

This  Lady  is  God's  daughter,  and  she  lends 

Her  hand  but  to  His  friends, 

But  to  her  Father's  friends  the  hand 

Which  thou  wouldst  win; 

Then  enter  in 

And  here  is  that  which  shall  for  all  make  mends."249 

He  had  sought  to  find  content  in  the  beautiful  Nature  myths  which 
form  so  large  a  part  of  the  "Renascence  of  Wonder"  in  later 

247  Meister  Eckhart,  quoted  in  Waskernagel,  Altdeutsches  Lesebuch,  p.  891. 

248  The  Ascent  of  Mount  Carmel,  Bk.  I,  Ch.  XIII. 

249  Thompson,  On  Nature:  Land  and  Plaint,  p.  167. 


POETRY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY  63 

English  poetry,  but  he  found  them  vague  and  unsubstantial,  with 
no  power  to  stay  in  the  deeper  cares  and  sorrows  of  life — her 
shrines  were  unavailing. 

"Nature,  poor  step-dame,  cannot  slake  my  drouth; 
Let  her,  if  she  would  owe, 

Drop  down  yon  blue  bosom  veil  of  sky,  and  show  me 
The  breasts  o'  her  tenderness: 
Never  did  any  milk  of  hers  once  bless 
My  thirsting  mouth."260 

Thompson  can  rejoice  in  beauty  with  all  the  sensuous  loveliness  of 
Keats :  but  ever  through  this  glad  earth-cry  he  catches  dim  pealings 
of  a  "higher  and  a  solemn  voice."  Nature  becomes  sacramental 
and  the  visible  a  portent  and  prophecy  of  the  invisible.  Perhaps 
no  one  of  his  poems  illustrates  this  attitude,  as  Christian  as  it  is 
poetic,  more  characteristically  than  the  lovely  Paschal  ode  "From 
the  Night  of  Forebeing"  with  its  inspiring, 

"Look  up,  O  mortals,  and  the  portent  heed: 
In  very  deed, 

Washed  with  new  fire  to  their  irradiant  birth 
Reintegrated  are  the  heavens  and  earth ! 
From  sky  to  sod 
The  world's  unfolded  blossom  smells  of  God."251 

He  weaves  the  name  of  Christ  into  the  very  texture  of  nature  and 
gives  phenomenal  life  a  new  meaning.262  In  the  "Prelude"  to  (the 
"Ode  to  the  Setting  Sun"  he  sounds  a  warning, 

"O  deceived, 

If  thou  hear  in  these  thoughtful  harmonies, 
A  pious  phantom  of  adorings  reaved, 
An  echo  of  fair  ancient  flatteries." 

He  is  prepared  to  sing, 

"A  song  thou  hast  not  heard  in  Northern  day; 

For  Rome  too  daring,  and  for  Greece  too  dark." 
for 

"Thou  dost  image,  thou  dost  follow 

That  King-Maker  of  Creation, 

Who  ere  Hellas  hailed  Apollo, 

Gave  thee,  angel  God,  thy  station : 

Thou  art  of  Him  a  type  memorial, 

Like  him  thou  hang'st  in  dreadful  pomp  of  blood 

Upon  thy  Western  rood;"263 

250  Thompson,  The  Hound  of  Heaven,  ed.  cit.,  Vol.  I,  p.  110. 

261  Cf.  Gerrard,  Op.  cit. 

252  Cf .  Walsh,  Eccl.  Rev.,  XLIX,  25. 

263  Thompson,  Ode  to  the  Setting  Sun,  ed.  cit.,  Vol.  I,  p.  125. 


64  SOME   EVIDENCES   OF   MYSTICISM   IN   ENGLISH 

The  rood  is  "too  dark"  for  Hellas,  and  for  her  disciples  of  today, 

yet 

"Even  so,  O  Cross!  thine  is  the  victory, 
Thy  roots  are  fast  within  our  fairest  fields, 
Brightness  they  emanate  in  Heaven  from  thee, 
Here  thy  dread  symbol  only  shadows  yields.*' 

For  consolation  he  appeals  to  the  "Way's  one  mortal  grace."254 

"Therefore,  O  tender  Lady,  Queen  Mary, 
Thou  gentleness  that  dost  enmoss  and  drape 
The  Cross's  rigorous  austerity, 
Wipe  thou  the  blood  from  wounds  that  needs  must  gape,"285 

and  he  hears  the  answer: 

"Lo,  though  suns  rise  and  set,  but  crosses  stay, 
*I  leave  thee  ever,'  saith  she,  *  light  of  cheer' 
'Tis  so;  yon  sky  still  thinks  upon  the  Day, 
And  showers  aerial  blossoms  on  his  bier."256 

When  he 

"With  winged  feet  had  run, 
Through  all  the  windy  earth  about, 
Quested  its  secret  of  the  sun, 
And  heard  what  things  the  stars  together  shout,"257 

how  could  it  be  that  he  would  fail  to  find  a  message  within  these : 

"By  this,  O  singer;  know  we  if  thou  see, 
WTien  men  shall  say  to  thee:  Lo,  Christ  is  here, 
Believe  them;  yea,  and  this  — then  art  thou  seer, 
When  all  thy  crying  clear 
Is  but!  Lo  here!  lo  there!  ah  me,  lo  everywhere."258 

Thompson  had  learned  that  "to  the  Poet  life  is  full  of  visions,  to 
the  Mystic  it  is  one  vision."259 

Thompson's  view  of  human  beauty  is  quite  the  antithesis  of 
that  held  by  Rossetti.  Rossetti  viewed  spiritual  beauty  in  the 
light  of  the  body:  Thompson  viewed  physical  beauty  in  the  light 
of  the  soul.  The  key  to  his  conception  of  material  loveliness  in 
woman,  is  given  in  the  following  lines: 

254  Thompson,  Grace  of  the  Way,  ed.  cit.,  Vol.  II,  p.  67. 

265  Ibid.,  Ode  to  the  Setting  Sun,  After-Strain,  ed.  cit.,  Vol.  I,  p.  126. 

2«  Ibid. 

257  Ibid.,  Orient  Ode,  ed.  cit.,  Vol.  II,  p.  28. 

258  Ibid. 

259  Cock,  "Francis  Thompson,"  Dublin  Review,  149,  271. 


POETRY   OF   THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY  65 

"  How  should  I  gauge  what  beauty  is  her  dole, 
Who  cannot  see  her  countenance  for  her  soul, 
As  birds  see  not  the  casement  for  the  sky? 
And,  as  'tis  check  they  prove  its  presence  by, 
I  know  not  of  her  body  till  I  find 
My  flight  debarred  the  heaven  of  her  mind."260 

His  phantasy,  free  from  the  meshes  of  sense,  can  live  only  in 
heaven : 

"How  praise  the  woman,  who  but  knew  the  spirit? 
How  praise  the  color  of  her  eyes  uncaught 
While  they  were  coloured  with  her  varying  thought? 
How  her  mouth's  shape,  who  only  use  to  know 
What  tender  shape  her  speech  had  fit  it  to?" 

For  mere  bodily  beauty  he  had  no  care: 

"But  for  what  we  call 
Beauty — the  loveliness  corporeal, 
Its  most  just  praise  a  thing  improper  were 
For  singer  or  to  listener,  me  or  her. 
She  wears  that  body  but  as  one  indues 
A  robe,  half  careless,  for  it  is  the  use; 
Although  her  soul  and  it  so  fair  agree, 
We  sure  may  unattaint  of  heresy, 
Concert  it  might  the  soul's  begetter  be : 
The  immortal  could  we  cease  to  contemplate, 
The  mortal  part  suggests  its  every  trait."261 

Thompson's  affections,  in  their  intensity,  were  centered  on  two 
forms  of  personality,  God  and  little  children.  In  "The  Poppy," 
dedicated  "To  Monica"  the  poet  says, 

"You  have  loved  me,  Fair,  three  lives — or  days: 
'Twill  pass  with  the  passing  of  my  face. 
But  where  I  go,  your  face  goes  too, 
To  watch  lest  I  play  false  to  you. 
I  am  but,  my  sweet,  your  foster-lover, 
Knowing  well  when  certain  years  are  over 
You  vanish  from  me  to  another; 
Yet,  I  know,  and  love,  like  the  foster-mother."262 

In  "Sister  Songs"  he  explains  his  tender  regard  for  childhood: 


260  Thompson,  Poems,  ed.  cit,  Love  in  Dian's  Lap,  Vol.  I,  p.  96. 

261  Ibid.,  p.  95. 

262  Ibid.,  Poems  on  Children,  p.  8. 


66  SOME   EVIDENCES   OF  MYSTICISM   IN   ENGLISH 

"Once, — in  that  nightmare-time  which  still  doth  haunt 
My  dreams,  a  grim,  unbidden  visitant — 
Forlorn,  and  faint,  and  stark, 
I  had  endured  through  watches  of  the  dark 
The  abashless  inquisition  of  each  star, 

Suffered  the  trampling  hoof  of  every  hour 

In  night's  slow- wheeled  car; 

Until  the  tardy  dawn  dragged  me  at  length 

From  under  those  dread  wheels;  and,  bled  of  strength, 

I  waited  the  inevitable  last: 

Then  there  came  past 

A  child;  like  thee,  a  spring-flower;  but  a  flower 

Fallen  from  the  budded  coronal  of  spring, 

And  through  the  city-streets  blown  withering, 

She  passed, — O  brave,  sad,  lovingest,  tender  thing ! 

And  of  her  own  scant  pittance  did  she  give, 

That  I  might  eat  and  live : 

Then  fled,  a  swift  and  trackless  fugitive. 

Therefore  I  kissed  in  thee 

The  heart  of  Childhood,  so  divine  for  me."263 

He  calls  to  his  aid  in  poesy, 

"Thou— 

Who  from  Thy  fair  irradiant  palms 
Scatterest  all  love  and  loveliness  as  alms; 
Yea,  Holy  One, 
Who  coin'st  Thyself  to  beauty  for  the  world!"264 

and  in  that  Beauty  did  he  view  all  "love  and  loveliness." 

It  was  inevitable  that  one  of  Thompson's  temperament,  realizing 
as  he  did  the  omnipresence  of  God  in  a  truly  Catholic  and  mystical 
sense,  should  emphasize  that  phase  of  spiritual  experience  known 
as  purgation,  and  assent  to  the  doctrine  that  the  excellence  of  the 
moral  life  can  be  obtained  only  by  self-renunciation;  that  the 
highest  excellences  of  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  life  can  be 
obtained  only  through  control  of  the  passions  and  the  will.  In 
Thompson  the  practice  of  asceticism  is  expounded  in  full  harmony 
with  the  teaching  of  the  saints.  Thompson  was  a  God-smitten 
poet,  and  he  did  not  fear  to  cry  out  the  needs  of  "our  uncoura- 
geous  day."  In  the  "Mistress  of  Vision"  he  lays  down  the  con- 
ditions for  initiation  to  the  goal  of  the  spirit. 

263  Ibid.,  Sister  Songs,  pp.  36-37. 
284  Ibid.,  p.  26. 


POETRY   OF  THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY  67 

XIV 

"On  Golgotha  there  grew  a  thorn, 
Round  the  long-prefigured  Brows, 
Mourn,  O  mourn! 

For  the  wine,  have  we  the  spine?     Is 
This  all  the  Heaven  allows? 

XV 

On  Calvary  there  shook  a  spear; 

Press  the  point  into  thy  heart — 

Joy  and  fear ! 

All  the  spines  upon  the  thorn  into  curling  tendrils  start." 

If  you  seek  the  "Land  of  Luthany,"  then 

"Pierce  thy  heart  to  find  the  key; 
With  thee  take 

Only  what  none  else  would  keep, 
Learn  to  dream  when  thou  dost  wake, 
Learn  to  wake  when  thou  dost  sleep, 
Learn  to  water  joy  with  tears, 
Learn  from  fears  to  vanquish  fears; 
To  hope,  for  thou  dar'st  not  despair, 
Exult,  for  that  thou  dar'st  not  grieve; 
Plough  thou  the  rock  until  it  bear; 
Die,  for  none  other  way  canst  live. 

When  thy  seeing  blindest  thee, 

To  what  thy  fellow  mortals  see; 

Their  living,  death;  their  light,  most  lightless; 

Search  no  more 

Pass  the  gates  of  Luthany,  tread  the  region  Elenore."265 

Neither  the  pages  of  the  Imitation,  nor  those  of  St.  John  of  the 
Cross,  furnish  a  more  powerful  exposition  of  "ascesis"  than  we 
find  in  this  twentieth  century  poet,  for  he  is  of  the  twentieth  rather 
than  the  nineteenth  century.  The  doctrine  of  renunciation 
is  writ  large  across  his  poetry.  In  "Any  Saint"  he  says, 

"Compost  of  Heaven  and  mire, 
Slow  foot  and  swift  desire, 
Lo 

To  have  Yes,  choose  No; 
Gird,  and  thou  shalt  unbind; 
Seek  not,  and  thou  shalt  find; 
To  eat 

Deny  thy  meat; 
And  thou  shalt  be  fulfilled 
With  all  sweet  things  unwilled."26* 

265  Ibid.,  Mistress  of  Vision,  ed.  cit.,  Vol.  II,  p.  7. 
286  Ibid.,  Any  Saint,  ed.  cit.,  Vol.  II,  p.  49. 


68  SOME   EVIDENCES    OF  MYSTICISM   IN   ENGLISH 

Again  he  sings, 

"Bliss  in  extreme  befits  thee  not,  until 
Thou'rt  not  extreme  in  bliss;  be  equal  still. 
Sweets  to  be  granted  think  thyself  unmeet 
Till  thou  have  learned  to  hold  sweet  not  too  sweet."267 

He  himself  had  learned  the  lesson : 

"I  witness  call  the  austere  goddess  Pain, 
If  I  have  learned  her  sad  and  solemn  scroll; 
Have  I  neglected  her  high  sacrifice, 
Spared  my  heart's  children  to  the  sacred  knife, 
Or  turned  her  customed  footing  from  my  soul, 
Yea,  thou  pale  Astorath  who  rul'st  my  life, 
Of  all  my  offerings  thou  hast  had  the  whole, 
One  after  one  they  passed  at  thy  desire 
To  sacrificial  sword,  or  sacrificial  fire."268 

The  utter  incapacity  of  a  soul,  destined  to  the  heights  of  spiritual 
life,  to  resist,  is  expressed  in, 

"Not  my  will  shudders,  but  my  flesh, 
In  awful  secrecy  to  hear 
The  wind  of  thy  great  teaching  sweep  afresh 
Athwart  my  face,  and  agitate  my  hair. 
Thy  ultimate  unnerving  dearness  take 
The  extreme  right  of  abnegation  make, 
And  sum  in  one  all  renderings  that  were."269 

Coventry  Patmore,  writing  of  Thompson,  says,  "Of  the  glori- 
fication and  supernatural  invigoration  of  all  the  human  passions 
by  control  and  continence,  the  many  know  nothing.  They  go  on 
burning  the  powder  of  human  force  in  dishes,  instead  of  in  gun- 
barrels,  and  in  their  estimate  of  life,  they  mistake  wasteful  blaze 
for  effectual  energy.  Mr.  Thompson's  poetry  is  spiritual  almost 
to  a  fault  but  since  it  is  a  real  ardour,  and  not  the  mere  negation  of 
life  which  passes  with  most  people  for  spirituality,  it  seems  some- 
what ungracious  to  complain  of  its  predominance."270  He  knew 
better,  however,  than  "to  make  his  religion  the  direct  subject  of 
any  of  his  poems,  unless  it  presents  itself  to  him  as  a  human  pas- 
sion, and  the  most  human  of  passions,  as  it  does  in  the  splendid 
ode  in  which  God's  long  pursuit  and  final  conquest  of  the  resisting 
soul  is  described  in  a  torrent  of  as  humanely  impressive  verse 
as  was  ever  inspired  by  natural  affection."271 

267  Ibid.,  Laus  Amoris  Doloris,  ed.  cit.,  Vol.  II,  p.  122. 

268  Ibid.,  p.  121. 

269  Ibid.,  p.  122. 

270  Patmore,  Fortnightly  Review,  January,  1904. 

271  Ibid. 


POETRY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY  69 

Thompson  has  given  us  the  only  true  solution  of  the  life-problem, 
in  the  "Hound  of  Heaven"  the  veritable  epos  of  the  soul.  He 
presents  the  Catholic  view  in  verse  that  will  live,  as  the  Imitation 
presents  it  in  immortal  prose,  and  as  David  sang  it  round  centuries 
ago.  "There  is  no  true  liberty,  no  solid  joy,  but  in  the  fear  of 
God  with  a  good  conscience."  The  "Hound  of  Heaven"  is  sound 
theology  informed  and  transformed  by  imagination.272  It  is  the 
most  entirely  mystical  of  Thompson's  poems.  In  bold  and  daring 
metaphor,  with  terrible  vividness,  and  in  phrase  of  haunting  music, 
it  pictures  for  us  the  everlasting  quest  of  the  soul  for  happiness, 
and  the  everlasting  quest  of  the  Creator  for  the  creature.  The 
idea  of  the  love  chase  was  not  unknown  to  the  mystics  of  the 
middle  ages.273  The  Voice  of  Love  said  to  Mechtilde  of  Magde- 
burg, "I  have  chased  thee,  for  this  was  my  pleasure;  I  captured 
thee  for  this  was  my  desire;  I  bound  thee,  and  I  rejoice  in  thy 
bonds;  I  have  wounded  thee,  that  thou  may'st  be  united  to  me. 
If  I  gave  thee  blows  it  was  that  I  might  be  possessed  of  thee."274 
The  poem  tells  of  one  who  fled  from  preventing  Love  to  seek  for 
happiness  in  creatures,  but  found  it  not. 

"I  pleaded,  outlaw  wise, 
By  many  a  heated  casement,  curtained  red, 
Trellised  with  intertwining  charities: 
(For,  though  I  know  His  love  followed 
Yet  was  I  sore  adread 

Lest  having  Him,  I  must  have  naught  beside.) 
But,  if  one  casement  parted  wide 
The  gust  of  his  approach  would  clash  it  to. 

I  tempted  all  his  servitors,  but  to  find 
Mine  own  betrayal  in  their  constancy 
In  faith  to  him,  their  fickleness  to  me. 

Fear  wist  not  to  evade,  as  Love  wist  to  pursue" 

and  still  with  "unperturbed  pace"  came  on  the  following  feet, 
and  above  their  beat  sounded  a  voice, 

"Naught  shelters  thee,  who  will  not  shelter  Me."278 


272  Cf.  O'Donnell,  Francis  Thompson:  a  critical  essay,  Notre  Dame  University 
Press,  1906. 

273  Underbill,  Op.  cit.,  pp.  158-162. 

274  Das  Fliessende  Licht  der  Gottheit,  Pt.  I,  Cap.  III. 

378  Thompson.  The  Hound  of  Heaven,  ed.  cit.,  Vol.  I,  p.  108. 


70  SOME   EVIDENCES   OF  MYSTICISM   IN   ENGLISH 

He  turns  to  children — "surely  they  at  least  are  for  me,"  but  no! 

"just  as  their  young  eyes  grow  sudden  fair, 
With  dawning  answers,  then 
Their  angel  plucked  them  by  the  hair." 

Human  love  has  failed,  but  Nature  will  be  true; 

"Let  me  greet  you  lip  to  lip, 
Let  me  twine  with  your  caresses, 
Wantoning  ly 

With  our  Lady  Mother's  vagrant  tresses 
Banqueting 

With  her  in  the  wind-walled  palace, 
Underneath  her  azured  dais, 
Quaffing  as  your  taintless  way  is, 
From  a  chalice 
Luscent- weeping  out  of  the  day  spring;"  27(J 

He  became  one  in  delicate  fellowship  with  Nature — he  learned  all 
her  secrecies — he  made  her  moods  the  shapers  of  his  own. 

"With  them  joyed  or  was  bereaven, 
I  was  heavy  with  the  even, 
When  she  lit  her  glimmering  tapers 
Round  the  day's  dead  sanctities."277 

He  laughed  in  the  morning's  eyes,  and,  most  potent  force  to  form 
a  bond, 

"Heaven  and  I  wept  together"278 

Against  the  red  throb  of  its  sunset  heart 

I  laid  my  own  to  beat, 

And  share  commingling  heat; 

But  not  by  that,  by  that  was  eased  my  human  smart ! 

For  ah !  we  know  not  what  each  other  says, 

These  things  and  I;  in  sound  I  speak, 

Their  sound  is  but  their  stir,  they  speak  by  silences."279 

How  different  is  this  from  "Nature  never  did  betray  the  heart 
that  loved  her."280 

"Naked  I  wait  Thy  love's  uplifted  stroke"-— 
all  is  sacrificed,  all  save  self: 


»•  ibid.,  p.  109. 

177  Ibid. 

178  ibid. 

*79  Ibid.,  p.  110. 

280  Wordsworth,  Line*  on  Tintern  Abbey. 


POETRY   OF  THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY  71 

"In  the  rash  lustihead  of  my  young  powers, 
I  shook  the  pillaring  hours 
And  pulled  my  life  upon  me;'* 

man  is  a  power  unto  himself,  is  not  this  the  teaching  of  the  modern 
world — but  he  finds  such  has  not  been  the  lesson  of  the  ages : 

"I  stand  amid  the  dust  of  the  mounded  years, 
My  mangled  youth  lies  dead  beneath  the  heap/'281 

Eminently  unreliable  is  the  boasted  apotheosis  of  human 
friendship,  equally  insufficient  the  aesthetic  appreciation  of 
nature,  and  foolish  the  claims  of  impersonal  idealism :  all  three  are 

"cords  of  all  too  weak  account 
For  earth,  with  heavy  griefs  nonplussed."282 

The  "linked  fantasies,"  the  thoughts  of  poesy  that  seem  to 
make  the  earth  an  enchanted  toy  are  fading  away;  the  innermost 
sanctuary  of  his  own  mind  is  despoiled:  the  soul  might  ask, 

"Why,  after  wounding 
This  heart,  hast  Thou  not  healed  it? 
And  why,  after  stealing  it, 
Hast  Thou  thus  abandoned  it?"283 

In  the  following  lines, 

"Ah!  is  Thy  love  indeed 
A  weed,  albeit  an  amaranthine  weed, 
Suffering  no  flowers  except  its  own  to  mount?"284 

there  is  an  echo  of  St.  Teresa's  naive  complaint, 

"  Lord,  if  you  treat  all  of  your  friends  thus,  no  wonder  you 

have  so  few." 
And  now  the  poet  contemplates  in  pity  his  alienated  self, 

"Ah!  must 
Designer  infinite ! 

Ah !  must  Thou  char  the  wood  ere  Thou  canst  limn 
with  it?"285 
but  the  mood  is  vanishing : 

"And  now  my  heart  is  as  a  broken  fount, 
Wherein  tear-drippings  stagnate,  spill  down  ever 
From  the  dark  thoughts  that  shine 
Upon  the  sighful  branches  of  my  mind. 
Such  is;  what  is  to  be?"286 


281  Thompson,  Hound  of  Heaven,  ed.  cit..  111. 

282  Ibid. 

88  St.  John  of  the  Cross.  A  Spiritual  Canticle,  Stan.  IX,  p.  7. 
184  Thompson,  Hound  of  Heaven,  ed.  cit.,  p.  111. 
286  Ibid. 
*•  Ibid. 


72  SOME    EVIDENCES   OF  MYSTICISM   IN   ENGLISH 

The  shadows  are  to  give  place  to  reality,  and  he  recognizes  the 
One  in  whose  everlasting  arms  he  is  to  find  peace. 

"I  dimly  guess  what  Time  in  mists  confounds; 
Yet,  ever  and  anon  a  trumpet  sounds 
From  the  hid  battlements  of  Eternity: 
Those  shaken  mists  a  space  unsettle,  then 
Round  the  half-glimpsed  turrets  slowly  wash  again, 
But  not  ere  Him  who  summoneth 
I  first  have  seen.'*287 

Critics  have  found  in  this  poem  a  complete  synthesis  of  the 
movements  of  English  thought  in  the  present  day.  In  the  first 
eight  lines : 

"I  fled  Him,  down  the  nights  and  down  the  days; 
I  fled  Him,  down  the  labyrinthine  ways 
Of  my  own  mind;  and  in  the  mist  of  tears 
I  hid  from  Him,  and  under  running  laughter : 
Up  vistaed  hopes,  I  sped; 
And  shot  precipitated, 
Adown  Titanic  glooms  of  chasmed  fears,"288 

are  suggested  the  reconstruction  of  history  through  the  formative 
ideas  of  induction  and  development:  the  separation  as  a  distinct 
study  or  science  of  psychology,  whose  work  is  generally  agreed 
to  be  of  the  most  vital  importance  to  knowledge  and  religion 
together;  and  the  alternative  optimism  and  pessimism  which,  in 
turn  and  at  times  side  by  side,  have  dominated  our  literature,  art, 
music,  and  philosophy.  In  the  stanzas  that  follow  the  failure  of 
impersonal  idealism,  the  dark  stagnation  of  that  peculiarly  modern 
tendency  to  self  analysis,  and  the  domination  over  all  of  the  figure 
whom  all  science  and  all  philosophy  seek  to  explain — the  only 
efficacy  of  this  Victim,  this  saving  Victim,  find  fit  and  true  expres- 
sion. The  strength  of  the  synthesis  lies  in  its  comprehension  that 
love  of  Nature,  home  life,  and  idealism,  if  they  are  to  actualize  in 
right  living,  are  not  to  be  separated  from,  but  included  in,  the 
Christ-life.289 

"All  which  I  took  from  thee  I  did  but  take 

Not  for  thy  harms, 

But  just  that  thou  might 'st  seek  it  in  My  arms. 

All  which  thy  child's  mistake 

Fancies  as  lost,  I  have  stored  up  for  thee  at  home."290 


287  Ibid. 

288  Ibid.,  p.  107. 

289  Cf.  Cock,  Op.  cit.,  p.  263. 

^Thompson,  Hound  of  Heaven,  ed.  cit.,  p.  112. 


POETRY    OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY  73 

The  last  stanza  offers  the  solution  of  all, 

"Is  my  gloom  after  all 

Shade  of  His  hand  outstretched  caressingly? 
Ah,  fondest,  blindest,  weakest, 
I  am  He  whom  thou  seekest! 
Thou  drav'st  love  from  thee,  who  drav'st  Me."291 

The  beauty  sought  was  not  the  visible  tangible  beauty  of  Nature, 
neither  was  it  the  beauty  of  children,  lovely  as  the  flowers,  but  it 
was  the  invisible,  intangible,  inapprehensible  Beauty  whose  quest 
his  faith  told  him  was  not  a  vain  one. 

The  * 'Hound  of  Heaven*'  pictures  the  "via  purgativa."  In  that 
beautiful  little  poem,  "In  No  Strange  Land,"  found  among 
Thompson's  papers,  and  published  after  his  death,  we  see  that  he 
had  at  least  a  glimpse  of  the  "via  illuminativa," 

"O  world  invisible,  we  view  thee, 
O  world  intangible,  we  touch  thee, 
O  world  unknowable,  we  know  thee. 

Yea,  in  the  night,  my  Soul,  my  daughter, 
Cry, — clinging  Heaven  by  the  hems; 
And  lo,  Christ  walking  on  the  water 
Not  of  Genesareth,  but  of  Thames!"292 

Thompson  "came  to  feel  .the  futility  of  all  writings  save  such  as 
were  explicitly  a  confession  of  faith ;  and  also  of  faithfulness  to  the 
institutional  side  of  religion,  the  Church  and  the  organized  means 
of  grace.  .  .  .  The  sanity  of  his  mysticism  is  the  great  value 
of  it  to  the  present  generation.  A  high  individual  experiencing 
of  purgation,  illumination,  and  union,  a  quiet  constancy  in  the 
corporate  life,  and  discipleship  as  well  as  leadership :  what  combina- 
tion more  needed  than  this  for  our  day?"293 


191  Ibid.,  p.  113. 

292  Thompson,  In  No  Strange  Land,  quoted  in  Cock,  Op.  cit.,  p.  277. 

»'  Meynell,  Op.  «'/.,  p.  202. 


74  SOME   EVIDENCES   OF   MYSTICISM   IN   ENGLISH 


CONCLUSION 

Mysticism  is  more  a  temper  of  mind  than  a  doctrine :  rather  an 
atmosphere  than  a  definite  system  of  philosophy.  The  mystic 
bases  his  belief  not  on  a  demonstrated  fact,  but  on  feeling,  and  as 
feeling  is  the  basis  of  poetry,  the  connection  between  this  form  of 
thought  and  poetry  is  necessarily  close.  There  is  a  tinge  of 
mystical  thought  in  nearly  all  the  greater  poetry  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  This  is  not  strange  when  we  consider  the  spirit  of  the 
age.  In  the  history  of  world-thought  we  have  ever  recurring 
periods  of  atheism  and  pantheism:  of  materialism  and  idealism: 
of  intellectualism  and  pietism.  The  eighteenth  century  was 
essentially  an  age  of  atheism,  of  materialism,  of  intellectualism. 
It  was  a  self-styled  "Age  of  Enlightenment,"  and  its  light  was  the 
cold  white  light  of  reason.  It  refused  to  believe  that  half-tones 
are  sometimes  more  productive  of  true  vision  than  the  blinding 
light  of  mid-day.  "It  insisted  on  abolishing  mystery,  and  it 
regarded  as  mystery  everything  which  was  not  finite,  everything 
which  could  not  be  set  by  itself  and  clearly  pictured  by  the  sensuous 
imagination  or  defined  by  logical  understanding.  It  favored  a 
way  of  thinking  which  was  clear  and  definite,  but  at  the  same  time 
deficient  in  depth  and  suggestiveness."294  Then  came  the 
reaction.  It  was  Immanuel  Kant  who  first  turned  the  tide  of 
thought  in  the  opposite  direction,  and  sought  to  substitute  the 
vital  and  the  spiritual  for  the  mechanical;  for  division  and  isolation 
the  essential  unity  of  consciousness. 

The  influence  of  this  change  of  thought  was  evident  in  the 
German  transcendental  school  of  philosophy,  and  affected  English 
literature  through  Coleridge,  whose  mysticism  resulted  from  a 
study  of  Kant  and  of  the  writings  of  Jakob  Boehme.  De  Quincey, 
in  that  wonderful  inner  life  of  thought  and  vision  of  which  he  has 
given  us  such  vivid  flashes;  Shelley,  in  Prometheus  Unbound, 
where  Asia  is  the  incarnation  of  that  ideal  sought  by  the  poet,  but 
never  found,  the  "shadow  of  that  beauty  unbeheld"  which  tan- 
talized him  in  the  transitory  gleams  vouchsafed  him,  and  the 
baffled  search  for  which  Alastor  and  Epipsychidion  reflect,  both 
display  the  influence  of  a  monistic  idealism  akin  to  Wordsworth, 

294  Caird,  Edward.  The  Critical  Philosophy  of  Immanuel  Kant,  Vol.  I, 
p.  46,  New  York,  1889. 


POETRY   OF  THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY  75 

but  aesthetic  rather  than  moral.  Keats,  though  he  lacked  the 
spiritual  tone,  and  the  clear  perception  of  abstract  beauty  which 
marks  Shelley 's  verse,  shared  with  the  latter  a  tendency  toward 
pantheistic  mysticism. 

In  Matthew  Arnold  and  Arthur  Hugh  Clough  there  is  a  mysti- 
cism devoid  of  actuality,  a  vague  and  vain  appreciation  of  the 
older  mystics,  but  an  appreciation  wanting  in  force  and  fiber. 
It  is  rather  a  melancholy  yearning  for  some  spiritual  ideal,  attain- 
able only  by  a  stern  negation,  to  which  they  are  unwilling  to 
submit. 

In  Edwin  Arnold's  interpretation  of  oriental  mysticism,  and  in 
Fitzgerald's  translations  of  Persian  poems,  there  is  evident  the 
same  inclination  to  mystical  contemplation. 

Tennyson,  in  his  admission  that  sense  knowledge  is  impotent 
in  dealing  with  what  is  beyond  both  sense  and  reason,  in  his 
insistence  on  the  reality  of  the  unseen,  in  his  belief  in  the  persistence 
of  life,  has  much  in  common  with  the  mystic.  In  the  outpourings 
of  the  Ancient  Sage,  in  Vastness,  in  The  Higher  Pantheism,  and  in 
the  Prologue  to  In  Memoriam,  are  passages  which  suggest  Plotinus  <~ 
and  Eckhart. 

Browning,  who  voiced  at  once  the  energy  of  the  age,  and  its 
passion  for  self -analysis,  in  his  assertion  of  the  relativity  of  physical 
knowledge  and  its  inadequacy  to  satisfy  the  mind  of  man,295  in  his 
refusal  to  acknowledge  an  irreconcilable  break  between  the  findings 
of  science  and  of  religion,  in  his  belief  that  love  of  God  is  the 
fundamental  law  of  life,296  as  well  as  in  the  emphasis  he  lays  on  the 
fact  that  intellectual  knowledge  and  artistic  insight  do  not  work 
for  the  betterment  of  man  when  the  cultivation  of  the  emotional 
side  of  his  nature  is  neglected,297  and  in  his  consideration  of  the 
problem  of  evil,298  gives  proof  of  a  peculiarly  mystical  bent  of 
mind. 

One  of  the  grave  dangers  of  mysticism  has  ever  been  the  inclina- 
tion to  become  a  passing  fashion,  a  vague  dream,  an  incentive  to 
high  aspirations,  not  invariably  accompanied  by  good  deeds. 

This  type  of  mysticism,299  emanating  from  the  school  represented 

295  Cf.  Asolando, 

296  Cf .  Rabbi  ben  Ezra,  Paracelsus,    f^ 

297  Cf .  My  Last  Duchess. 

298  Cf .  The  Ring  and  the  Book. 

299  Cf.  Charbonnel  Victor,  Lea  Mystiques  dans  la  litterature  presente,  Paris, 
1897. 


76  SOME   EVIDENCES   OF  MYSTICISM   IN   ENGLISH 

by  Baudelaire,  Huysmans,  Maeterlinck,  and  Tolstoi,  was  not 
without  its  representatives  in  English  literature.  Among  the 
poets  more  or  less  imbued  with  this  spirit  are  William  Morris, 
Arthur  Symons,  an  exception  must  be  made  in  favor  of  his  transla- 
tion of  the  Obras  Espirituales  of  St.  John  of  the  Cross,  and  Richard 
Le  Gallienne. 

Fortunately  this  movement  was  counteracted  by  the  more 
healthy  tone  of  Coventry  Patmore,  of  Lionel  Johnson  and  of 
Gerard  Hopkins,  and  above  all,  by  Francis  Thompson,  who  repre- 
sents a  form  of  mysticism  not  wholly  pleasing  to  the  neo-pagan 
and  the  dreamer,  but  of  infinite  worth  as  an  invigorator  of  life. 

In  the  study  here  presented,  Wordsworth  stands  as  a  type  of 
nature-mystic,  with  an  undetermined  leaning  toward  pantheism: 
Rossetti  represents  the  trend  of  mind  that  seeks  satisfaction  for 
its  highest  needs  in  the  contemplation  of  ideal  beauty:  Patmore 
would  make  human  love  a  stepping-stone  to  the  divine,  and 
Thompson  sought  his  inspiration  in  revealed  religion. 

So  through  the  changes  from  naturalism  to  romanticism,  from 
materialism  to  idealism  which  marked  the  century  "That  rose 
'midst  dust  of  a  down-tumbled  world,"300  and  died, 

"With  rumor  on  the  air 
Of  preparation 

For  a  more  ample  devastation 
And  death  of  ancient  fairness  no  more  fair,"301 

the  mind  of  man,  through  mists  of  error  and  faint  gleams  of  light, 
turned  ever  eagerly  toward  God,  and  the  Endless  and  the  Unbegun. 

300  Thompson,  Francis,  The  Nineteenth  Century. 

301  Ibid. 


POETRY   OF   THE    NINETEENTH   CENTURY  77 


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BOSANQUET,  BERNARD.     A  History  of  Aesthetic.     New  York,  1892. 
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Naturalism  in  England.     New  York,  1902. 
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CAREY,  ELIZABETH  LUTHER.    The  Rossettis:  Dante  Gabriel  and  Chris- 
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CHARLIER,  GUSTAVE.     La  Sentiment  de  la  nature  chez  les  romantiques 

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CLOUGH,  ARTHUR  H.     Prose  Remains.     London,  1869. 
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1913. 

DAWSON,  W.  J.     Makers  of  Poetry.     New  York,  1902. 
DE  VERB,  AUBREY.     Essays,  Chiefly  on  Poetry.     London,  1887. 
DE  QUINCY.     Essays  on  the  Poets  and  Other  English  Writers.     Boston, 

1865. 
DOWDEN,  EDWARD.    Studies  in  Literature.     London,  1882. 

Transcripts  and  Studies.     London,  1896. 
DUNN,  HENRY  TREFFLY.    Recollections  of  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  and 

and  his  circle.   London,  1904. 

ECKERMANN,  J.  P.     Gesprache  mit  Goethe.     Leipsig,  1902. 
FAIRCHILD,  A.  H.    The  Making  of  Poetry.     New  York,  1912. 
FORMAN,  H.  BUXTON.     Our  Living  Poets.     London,  1871. 
FORSYTH,  P.  F.     Religion  in  Recent  Art.     London,  1901. 
GANZENMULLER,  WILHELM.    Das  NaturgefUhl  in  Mittelalter.    Leipsig, 

1914. 

GATES,  LEWIS  EDWARDS.     Studies  and  Appreciations.     New  York,  1900. 
GOSSE,  EDMUND.     Coventry  Patmore.     London,  1905. 
HAZLITT,  WILLIAM.     Sketches  and  Essays:  Win terslow.     London,  1902. 

My  First  Acquaintance  with  Poets.     London,  1902. 
HERFORD,  CHARLES  H.     Age  of  Wordsworth.     London,  1897. 
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INNES,  A.  D.     Seers  and  Singers.     London,  1903. 
KNIGHT,  JOSEPH.     Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti.     London,  1887. 
LEGOUIS,  EMILE.     La  Jeunesse  de  William  Wordsworth.     Paris,  1896. 

Translated  by  J.  W.  Matthews.     London,  1897. 

MABIE,  H.  W.     Essays  in  Literary  Interpretation.     New  York,  1900. 
MACKAIL,  J.  W.     Lectures  on  Greek  Poetry.     London,  1910. 

Lectures  on  Poetry.     London,  1911. 
MARILLIER,  H.  C.     Rossetti.     London,  1906. 
MASSON,  DAVID.     Wordsworth,    Shelley,    Keats    and    other    Essays. 

London, 1856. 
MEYNELL,  ALICE.    The  Rhythm  of  Life  and  other  Essays.     London, 

1896. 

MEYNELL,  WILFRID.    Life  of  Francis  Thompson.    New  York,  1913. 
MYERS,  F.  W.  H.     Essays  Modern.     London,  1883. 
Life  of  Wordsworth.  New  York,  1887. 


82  SOME   EVIDENCES   OF   MYSTICISM   IN   ENGLISH 

NETTLESHIP,  R.  L.     The  Moral  Influence  of  Literature.     London,  1890. 
NICHOLSON,  P.  W.     Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti,  Poet  and  Painter.     Edin- 
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1912. 
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Notre  Dame  University  Press,  1906. 

OZANAM,  FREDERICK.     The  Franciscan  Poets  in  Italy  of  the  Thirteenth 
Century,  translated  by  A.  E.  Nellen  and  N.  C.  Craig.     New  York, 
1915. 
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Philosophy  of  Literature.     St.  Louis,  1898. 
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PATER,  WALTER.    Appreciations.    New  York,  1889. 
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Religio  Poetae.     London,  1905. 
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RANNIE,  D.  W.     Wordsworth  and  His  Circle.     London,  1907. 
RALEIGH,  W.     W'ordsworth.     London,  1903. 
ROSSETTI,  DANTE  GABRIEL.    Complete  Works,  edited  with  preface  and 

notes  by  William  M.  Rossetti.     London,  1905. 
Complete  Poetical  Works.     Boston,  1903. 

Hand  and  Soul.     Reprinted  from  "The  Germ."    Portland,  Me.,  1900. 
Letters  to  William  Allingham.    New  York,  1897. 
ROSSETTI,  WILLIAM  MICHAEL.    Memoir    in    Dante    Gabriel    Rossetti: 

His  Family  Letters.     Boston,  1895. 

Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  as  Designer  and  Writer.     London,  1889. 
Rossetti  Papers,  1862  to  1870.     London,  1913. 
Pre-Raphaelite  Diaries  and  Letters.     London,  1900. 
SAINTSBURY,  GEORGE.    The    Later    Nineteenth    Century.    Edinburgh 

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Interpretation  of  Poetry  and  Religion.     New  York,  1900. 
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SNEATH,  WILLIAM.    Wordsworth:  Poet  of  Nature  and  Poet  of  Man. 
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SPURGEON,  C.  F.  E.    Mysticism  in  English  Literature.    New  York,  1913. 
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84  SOME   EVIDENCES   IOF  MYSTICISM   IN   ENGLISH 

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POETRY   OF   THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY  85 


VITA 

Sister  Mary  Pius  Neenan  was  born  in  Keokuk,  Iowa,  October 
15,  1878.  She  received  her  elementary  education  in  St.  Vincent's 
Academy,  in  that  city,  and  followed  the  high  school  course  at 
St.  Joseph's  Academy,  Saint  Louis,  Mo.,  from  which  institution 
she  was  graduated  in  1895.  In  1897  she  entered  the  novitiate  of 
the  Sisters  of  St.  Joseph  of  Carondelet,  St.  Louis.  After  having 
pursued  various  normal  and  collegiate  courses  under  the  direction 
of  members  of  her  own  community,  she  began  work  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Missouri  in  1908,  and  continued  until  the  opening  of  the 
Catholic  Sisters  College,  Catholic  University  of  America,  in  1911. 
She  received  the  degree  Bachelor  of  Arts  in  1913,  and  that  of 
Master  of  Arts  in  1915.  In  her  career  as  teacher  she  has  been 
engaged  as  follows :  Instructor  in  English,  Academy  of  Our  Lady, 
Peoria,  111.;  Principal  of  the  Redemptorist  High  School,  Kansas 
City,  Mo.;  Principal  of  the  Diocesan  High  School  for  Girls,  St. 
Louis;  Instructor  in  English,  St.  Joseph's  Academy,  St.  Louis. 

The  years  1912-1913,  1914-1915,  1915-1916,  have  been  spent 
in  residence  at  the  Catholic  Sisters  College,  Catholic  University 
of  America.  In  her  graduate  work  the  principal  courses  followed 
have  been  those  under  Mr.  J.  B.  O'Connor,  Ph.D.,  Reverend  E.  A. 
Pace,  S.T.D.,  and  Reverend  William  Turner,  S.T.D.  The  writer 
is  happy  to  have  this  opportunity  to  express  her  deep  appreciation 
of  the  work  done  under  these  instructors  and  in  particular  to 
acknowledge  gratefully  the  kindly  assistance  and  encouragement 
given  by  Reverend  William  Turner,  S.T.D.,  under  whose  direction 
this  dissertation  was  written. 


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